Models for Leadership and Followership

Minor Project – 2

Leadership and Followership

In his award-winning and influential book, James McGregor Burns wrote that “leadership is one of the least understood and most observed phenomena.” According to a social and psychosocial study, a leader-follower framework establishes spontaneously when the groups are supposed to be leaderless (Edge, 2020). Whenever there is a group of people, a leader-follower relationship develops naturally. As a result, multiple experts have concluded that leadership is universal human behavior (Van Vugt, 2006). On the other hand, evolutionary scientists have also had a standing interest in leadership (Winston & Patterson, 2006). To Zoologists, leadership is the simple act of leading other group members while locomoting from one point to another (Northouse, 2021). Several evolutionary researchers consider group movement, for instance, towards new feeding grounds or waterholes as a classic leadership challenge. Within society, leadership is usually considered an individual’s inherent phenomenon (Bennis, 2001).

Definition, Assumptions, and Outline of leadership and followership

Various psychological pieces of literature have defined leadership in several significant ways. Leadership can be defined broadly as the influence processes toward achieving a mutual target (Van Vugt, 2006). Also, leadership can be considered a social process where interacting persons coordinate their activities to attain common goals (Edge, 2020). According to this perspective, leadership cannot be studied without evaluating the desires and needs of the followers (Northouse, 2021). Within psychological literature, questions concerning the origins of followership are not commonly asked (Winston & Patterson, 2006). However, they are vital in evolutionary analysis (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Equally, even though psychological literature usually presumes that followers’ and leaders’ goals are the same, an evolutionary notion argues it is an unwanted assumption (Van Vugt, 2006). For instance, even humans who are members of highly social species repeatedly undergo conflicts of interest to pursue their aims.

Besides, leadership can also be described as a quantitative trait. Everyone can lead up to some level, but personal differences exist in the propensity to lead (Van Vugt, 2006). Some research studies have also claimed that leadership is a function of the situation. Everyone could be a leader (Winston & Patterson, 2006). When leadership is considered as a social influence strategy, an evolutionary analysis is in tandem with either state or trait explanations of leadership.

A leader has to recognize the importance and impact of audiences outside the organization’s systems and present the organization to the audiences outside so that the audiences have a precise image of the goals and purpose of the organization (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Besides, through every leader-follower-audience socialization, any leader shows their commitment to values of concern for others, controlled discipline, humility, showing mercy, looking for what is suitable for the organization, and maintaining and creating peace within the organization amongst others (Winston & Patterson, 2006).

Alternatively, a leader is one or more people who influence, select, train, and equip followers with dynamic skills, abilities, and gifts (Winston & Patterson, 2006). A leader also shifts the followers’ focus to the organization’s objective and mission, triggering followers to enthusiastically and willingly expend emotional, physical, and spiritual energy in a combined effort to attain organizational objectives and mission (Van Vugt, 2006). A leader can attain such influence through effective and humble communication to the followers of the prophetic vision of tomorrow in terms that resonate with the values and beliefs of their followers in such a manner that followers can quickly internalize and interpret the future into current period activities.

Besides, during this process, a leader conveys a prophetic vision dissimilar to the organization’s current status through intuition, insight, critical thinking skills, persuasive rhetoric, and interpersonal communication (Winston & Patterson, 2006). A leader can attain this through ethical ways and strive for the greater good of the followers in the process of activity process in a manner that followers are better off due to interaction with the leader (Van Vugt, 2006). Moreover, a leader can attain this same state for herself as they look for personal renewal, growth, increased stamina-mental, regeneration spiritual and emotional, and physical through the follower-leader interactions.

Anthropological and Nonhuman Evidence for Leadership and followership

The evolutionary claim is based on the assumption that followership and leadership evolved together in humans and other social species since assuming such roles under appropriate situations would have been adaptive (Edge, 2020). As a result, leadership examples would be found everywhere across cultures and human history (Van Vugt, 2006). Throughout the entire evolutionary history, humans were organized into tiny hunter-gatherer communities (Northouse, 2021). According to research findings, even though hunter-gatherer societies did not have elected officers or institutional rulers, there used to be individuals that were more likely to take a crucial role in the group’s direction and decision making (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Several such societies used to have an informal leader (Big man), a warrior-like and physically strong figure that enjoyed more influence on the group’s next move.

Subsequently, primates are also known to involve in a leader-follower relationship similar to that of humans (Edge, 2020). For example, when baboons locomote, the older male takes the responsibility by moving a few meters away from the team toward his preferred destination. As a result, others move in the same direction while another troop follows (Van Vugt, 2006). Migratory social species have also exhibited the same pattern (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Such species include migrating birds, buffalo, and deer, amongst others.

Moreover, leadership has also been exhibited in response to aggression within groups. For instance, in De Waal’s study of 1996, chimpanzee behavior was observed, and on a particular occasion, they were seen to display leadership-followership while defending their territory (Van Vugt, 2006). Since the patterns were very similar to the leader-follower relationship in humans, a similar principle is presumed to work.

Evolutionary Theories of Leadership

According to evolutionary literature, there are two main approaches to the origin of leadership in humans.

Leadership as By-product Dominance

Some evolutionists claim that adaptation for followership and leadership does not exist. However, behaviors associated with the leadership-followership relationship are byproducts of adaptations for dominance and submission (Van Vugt, 2006). Accordingly, in this perspective, the occupation of a follower and a leading role are illustrated wholly by the relative positions of particular persons in the dominance hierarchy of a team. Dominance hierarchies result from competition among the team members due to resource scarcity (Van Vugt, 2006). Since some people become more successful in obtaining access to scarce resources than others, hierarchies establish themselves where those on the top enjoy more reproductive access than those at the bottom of the hierarchy, the usual pecking order.

Besides, highly located people can practice control over team activities since they do not rely on others to attain their goals. Whenever they are hungry, they eat, when tired, rest, and threaten whoever displeases them (Edge, 2020). Low-ranked individuals have to organize their activities with the dominant persons because they provide protection and access to other resources of value like mates and food (Van Vugt, 2006). As a result, individuals of low rank in the team must follow what the dominant individuals have decided to undertake.

The byproduct dominance theory of leadership is liked due to its parsimony (Bennis, 2001). It can apply to social species where dominant players consistently lead the team, for instance, while going after the prey or defending against predators (Northouse, 2021). Moreover, it is intuitively lucrative since some human leaders are considered controlling, bossy and dominant (Van Vugt, 2006). However, this model is not likely to substantiate the totality of leadership phenomena amongst human beings (Edge, 2020). Human hierarchies are flatter than other social species; nonhuman primates included.

Furthermore, human hierarchies are primarily established upon prestige instead of dominance (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Dominance becomes cumbersome since most critical resources are only available through cooperation and, once availed, cannot be monopolized by an individual, for instance, large game hunting (Van Vugt, 2006). On the other hand, team members also have the alternative of following a leader. They can opt-out of the group entirely or follow another leader (Winston & Patterson, 2006). As a result, the control and power of one person over the others is highly restricted.

On the other hand, according to excellent man theory, leaders are blessed with heroic abilities and characteristics (Northouse, 2021). Moreover, trait theory considers leaders as individuals with particular characteristics that enable or help such individuals to become good leaders (Edge, 2020). Even though excellent man theory claims that individuals are blessed with some element of leadership, trait theory gives a base for testable and measurable features like race, appearance, cognitive factors, efficacy factors, height, psychological factors, and virtues, to mention a few categories (Winston & Patterson, 2006). However, According to Stogdill and Bass (1990), both the trait theory and the grand man theory focus on the individual (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Nonetheless, leadership can also be given to a group of people (Northouse, 2021). For instance, top management teams represent a group that completes all the processes and tasks of leadership as a collective, not as an individual (Van Vugt, 2006). Otherwise, according to Richard and Shelor (2002), traits are still applicable to leadership teams; however, there is little or no literature on the grand theories and their application to leadership teams.

Leader and Follower: A Relationship-based Approach

From leadership works of literature review, multiple leadership theories have been cheap models without the direction of what a leader should do to the juniors (Edge, 2020). As a result, the followers’ unexplored variance source in understanding the leadership process (Van Vugt, 2006). Irrespective of the fact that most of the recent theories of charismatic leadership concentrate on leaders plus the negative and positive consequences of their behavior or personality, there is a shift of attention to followers’ roles in the leadership process (Winston & Patterson, 2006). From the claims of Robert Kelley, the majority of the people are always followers than leaders. For example, there are still bosses even where there are subordinates (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Therefore, followership dominates our organizations and lives, except for our thinking, since our preoccupation with leadership prevents us from considering the follower’s importance and nature.

Subsequently, Graen developed an approach to the leader-member exchange resulting in a critical step in paying attention to the role of the follower (Winston & Patterson, 2006). Contrary to most leadership theories, this theory appreciates the value of the role of followers in the leadership process and reiterates that both follower and leader mutually devalue the relationship quality (Van Vugt, 2006). According to the relationship-based approach, proper leadership processes occur when followers and leaders can develop mature leadership partnerships or relationships, hence obtaining access to several benefits that come with such relationships.