Introduction
In healthcare settings, leadership is vital for the success of any health organization (Atchison, 2003: Dye, 2010). Leadership inspires followers to work collectively to achieve specific goals within an organization. Leadership is an organizational practice that not only influences the followers (employees) but also the leaders in a manner that ensures the achievement of organizational objectives through change.
This argument means that leadership integrates and intertwines followers and leaders besides influencing organizational objectives, missions, and other organizational stakeholders (Lussier & Achua, 2004). While leading, followers must be involved. This claim perhaps reveals why there has been an immense scholarly interest in how leaders must relate with followers to ensure organizational success. This interest has truncated into a growing body of research, which points to the importance of leader and followership theories as key ingredients for organizational leaders to understand.
In healthcare settings, leadership has undergone magnificent changes from bureaucratic, transformational, and participatory leadership to leadership through followership. These changes have occurred in the quest to address the emerging problems in leadership. The purpose of the paper is to present a research on leadership and followership theories. It presents these theories as essential ingredients for organizational leadership that all leaders in healthcare settings ought to understand.
An effort is also made to compare and contrast the principles of the two theoretical concepts coupled with an evaluation of challenges encountered by leaders when applying these theoretical approaches in organizational leadership. The paper then concludes by synthesizing key components of these concepts based on the role they play when it comes to successful leadership development.
Leadership and Followership Theories as Ingredients that Organizational Leaders must understand
A leader is a person who plans, controls, directs, and guides other people towards the attainment of common mutual objectives and goals. A leader has two main components- organizational and personal elements. According to Lussier and Achua (2004), “…success over time demands knowledge of and commitment to both” (p.31). Leadership influences the relationship between leaders and employees who act as tools for change within an organization, which must reflect a shared purpose for interaction of both employees and leaders. The qualities that describe effective followership are similar to those that describe effective leadership (Atchison, 2003).
The importance of followership theories and leadership theories to organizational leaders is pegged on the assertion that leadership is linked to followership. It is through the understanding of this link that it becomes possible to adopt appropriate leadership styles that ensure that organizational objectives, goals, and missions are achieved (Dye, 2010). Such a relationship is implied by understanding the actual works of a leader within an organization.
Many leadership theories such as participatory and transformational leadership theories contend that leaders serve the principal functions of directing and guiding the behaviors of various people who must work together in teamwork in the work environment. For this case to happen, Daft (2005) insists, “leaders cannot accomplish goals without the assistance of followers” (p.65). Followers must therefore embrace and welcome the process of being directed by persons whom they believe are supposed to lead them.
This argument means that the existence of a good relationship between leaders and followers within an organization initiates by the creation of a good understanding of the function and purpose of leadership among those that one leads. Consequently, it is important that leaders understand, through studying followership theories, the mechanism used by followers to accept persons as leaders. This knowledge is important in the sense that it helps leaders to know what to do to ensure that followers obey and respect the directions they give (Lussier & Achua, 2004).
The mechanisms used by followers to accept other people as leaders are described in an emerging and growing body of leadership literature referred to as implicit leadership. This body of knowledge is also term as leadership categorization theory. Implicit leadership is defined as the “pre-existing assumptions and prototypes about the behaviors, traits, and abilities that one’s prototypical leader possesses” (Kedharnath, 2011, p.4).
From this school of thought, one becomes an effective leader if the lead parties perceive him or her as a leader. For individuals who are not perceived as leaders, they are likely not to influence or be considered as effective in their work as opposed to those individuals who are accepted as good leaders by the followers. Kedharnath (2011) contends with this argument by further adding, “a leader must match a follower’s leadership prototype in order to be perceived as a leader” (p.17). Hence, leaders must understand that their effectiveness is not only a function of how they execute their roles within the healthcare settings but also a function of their acceptability as leaders by those whom they lead. In this quest, an understanding of cognitive categorization for their prototype schemas developed by the followers is crucial.
Schemas encompass the various forms of cognitive systems for organization deployed by people to encode a myriad of incoming information. They act as pivotal platforms for comparing incoming and pre-existing stimuli that relate to people and other physical objects. This argument means that the judgment of an individual based on any stimuli is highly influenced by the schemas. Followers possess schemas such that they have the knowledge and anticipations of the manner in which a leader ought to relate with them for them to comply with his or her guidelines as one of the functions of leadership in any organization.
In this context, Daft (2005) maintains, “people deploy cognitive categorization processes when dispensing information about leaders” (p.67). This strategy implies that organizational leaders need to understand that followers employ schemas that exist within themselves coupled with the perceptions of their preferred prototype leaders to inseminate information pertaining to actual supervisors whom they perceive as serving their own interest. Hence, they must comply with his or her directions while having a positive feeling that they ought to belong in the leadership camp of the supervisor.
Followers compare their supervisors and managers in an implicit way with their schematically developed leadership prototypes. This view leads to the development of certain perceptions about managers and supervisors. These perceptions may act in favor or disfavor of the supervisor or manager in question (Daft, 2005). The challenge of individuals endeavoring to develop a positive reception by followers as their most preferred leader involves creating stimuli that ensures that the followers develop the schema that associates him or her with effective leadership. To resolve this challenge, understanding the relationship between leadership and followership theories is important.
Apart from the implicit leadership that digs into the relationship between leadership and followership theories, alternative theoretical paradigms form the basis for appreciating the significance of paying central attention to the followers in leadership approaches that are adopted in the health care settings. One of such theories is the behavioral leadership theory. Some of these theories including democratic, autocratic and laissez-faire were developed by Lewis studies (Daft, 2005).
From an autocratic perspective, leaders deploy strong controlling and directive actions to ensure that rules alongside regulations coupled with relations are enforced within work environments. Although this kind of leadership is necessary, it can create a negative perception accompanied by fear among followers where the goal is to enforce compliance to stipulated guidelines. Consequently, rather than executing duties to precision to attain organizational objectives, the followers execute their role to escape the wrath of the leader. This move makes the followers feel as if they are not part of organizational processes.
Autocratic leadership approaches present a direct contrast of democratic leadership approaches. With regard to Kedharnath, “democratic leaders take collaborative, responsive, and interactive actions with followers concerning the work and work environment” (2011, p.13). Leading from a democratic leadership approach means that followers are part of decision-making processes of an organization. Therefore, they are accountable to the leaders for their actions. The goals of followers in the organization are therefore to act in a manner that ensures that the duties that are delegated to them are accomplished to the prescribed quality levels. Such quality levels are determined in the organizations’ objectives, goals, and aims.
A leader can accomplish his or her roles of leadership through delegation and participation as opposed to control and enforcement of rules and regulations. This kind of leadership approach is likely to create positive schemas about ones capacity to function as a leader in the employees’ cognitions. Although the followers’ theoretical approaches emphasize that followers should be accountable to the manner in which they accomplish their functions of the organization delegated to them, followers still know that their leader would appreciate and accept his or her responsibilities for having delegated the tasks to them.
This strategy is opposed to laissez-faire approach in leadership in which a leader rejects the responsibility of his or her position. Consequently, adopting a democratic leadership approach implies that followers act in a manner that ensures that their works receive credits. In the process, the leader can direct, control, and monitor the process of realization of organizational aims, objectives, and goals. The underlying argument here is that leaders cannot achieve their leadership function without understanding the roles of followers in the organization and or how to achieve an organizational culture of participatory leadership.
Comparing and Contrasting Leadership and Followership Theories
Leadership and followership theories are similar but yet different in various ways. Leadership theories view followers within an organization as passive or autonomous agents who can become more effective, and be aligned into organizational goals and objectives through adoption of appropriate leadership styles. However, the embracement of concepts of empowerment coupled with the necessity of creation of work teams, which are self managed within an organization has altered these approaches of leadership. According to Kedharnath (2011), research on leadership has been altered to increase perspective of importance of followers in the leadership theoretical paradigms.
Followership theories treat followers in two ways that are opposed to the leadership theoretical paradigms. First, followers are dynamic meaning that they are able to respond appropriately to any stimuli in their work environment. They can make the work of a leader easy or difficult through compliance or non-compliance. In such situations, the goal of a leader is to look for mechanisms of enhancing compliance. This way, followership theories contend, “A dynamic follower becomes a responsible steward of his or her job, is effective in managing the relationship with the leader, and practices self-management” (Daft, 2005, p.67).
This assertion underlines the second paradigm of presentation of followers in followership theories. They are passive or active, critical or uncritical thinkers, and dependent or independent thinkers. Thus, it is important for a leader to evaluate and determine the sort of followers he or she is dealing with to adopt appropriate leadership approaches that meet the needs of his or her followers in the effort to keep them active, motivated, and committed to the goals and objectives of the organization.
Followership and leadership theories are similar in the sense that they consider an organization as dominated by two main key players who are beyond the control of usual ways of controlling other factors of production such as land and capital. This perception is important since employees and their leaders possess personality attributes, behavior, and cognitions that influence their productivity. This drawback may impair the extent to which organization’s goals objectives and missions are realized. For instance, with regard to Pearce and Conger (2003), “effective followers practice self-management and self-responsibility, and are committed to the organization and a purpose or person outside themselves” (p.85).
Consequently, it is arguable that such followers are credible, courageous, pass the test of not being self-centered, and are courageous. These are all personality traits. Leadership theories discuss effective leadership from a similar focal point. Effective leaders are considered as honest, possess emotional intelligence, are charismatic, situational aware, and accountable among other personality and cognitive traits.
Challenges encountered by Leaders when applying Leadership and Followership Theoretical Approaches
Application of leadership and followership theories implies that leaders have to execute their roles in an organization as spelt out by leadership theories while bearing in mind the traits anticipated of them by followers as discussed in the followership theories. Knowing the followers’ anticipations is incredibly a big challenge since followers can make an inaccurate guess about their leaders’ attributes and characteristics” (Kedharnath, 2011, p.5). For instance, it is possible for followers to categorize their supervisors as leaders simply because they have schemas that are consistent with the traits including emotional intelligence, cute communication skills, and confidence.
When such followers are queried on whether they think that their leaders of choice have other qualities associated with good leadership skills as explained in the leadership theories such as good planning coupled with organizational skills among others, it is likely they would say yes although it may not be the case.
This argument holds because their prototype schemas compel them to think that possession of a single attribute to which one relates with good leadership implies that an individual possesses all the traits for good leadership. This view becomes a big challenge to people who want to apply followership theories to inform their leadership styles since it becomes hard to identify what is expected of a leader by a given group of followers. There may also be inconsistencies in the traits that followers consider as appropriate for a good leader.
Followership theories proclaim that the best approach of effective leadership is the approach that ensures that the interests of followers are incorporated in the leadership approaches adopted in organizations. The challenges posed by these approaches include looking for a means of enhancing compliance among followers to the directives and control measures put in place by a leader to ensure that an organization does not derail from its overall goals, aims, and objectives (Kedharnath, 2011).
Applying followership theories in leadership attracts challenges because of challenges of causal attributions that are central to the perceptions of followers about their leaders. For instance, in case leaders make mistakes, followers attribute their own mistakes to their leaders. They presume that leaders possess more powers than they have especially while making important and influential decisions within an organization (Kedharnath, 2011, p.9).
This fact is a challenge since such mistakes are more of being attributable to the followers because they are the actual implementers of any directive given. Consequently, it becomes hard for a leader to approach his or her roles in leadership from what is desired by a follower. In case it happens, leaders cease from accepting accountability and responsibilities associated with their roles. This challenge is more pronounced in healthcare settings where compliance is required to ensure successful implementation of certain organizational policies.
Key Components of Leadership and Followership Theoretical Approaches for Successful Leadership Development
Several components of leadership and followership theoretical approaches may ensure successful leadership development within an organization. From the perspective of followership and leadership theories, an organization’s leadership entails good interaction between the leader and employees or followers. In such contexts, development of effective leadership requires the possession of good interpersonal skills and personality traits. Followers require open-minded leaders coupled with leaders who are confident and willing to take charge of the repercussions of their actions.
Followers “respond well to signs of team orientation and a healthy respect for their accumulated knowledge and experience” (Pearce & Conger, 2003, p.98). From new leaders’ perspective, this argument implies that they must understand that some people may have resentments in case they are not accorded some leadership positions within team works. Thus, for effective development of leadership, the leader must look for special ways for addressing these sensitivities. This strategy is important for the followers to develop the confidence that the leader serves their interests and is mindful of their specific capabilities in enhancing organizational change.
Another essential component of leadership that is consistent with the followership leadership theoretical paradigms is the call for putting in place leadership styles that focus on the manner in which people can improve their performance in an organization. Followers want leaders who can help them grow professionally to become independent actors within an organization (Atchison, 2003).
This move is a major milestone in the adoption of participatory leadership, which is crucial for motivation of employees. In this regard, Pearce and Conger (2003) argue that an effective leader designs his or her leadership styles around the perspectives of followership theories. He or she needs to discuss with followers about “the importance of quality work, the need for renewed commitment to high standards, and a reiteration of personal and group accountability” (Pearce & Conger, 2003, p.123).
In this context, it sounds imperative to infer that followers welcome openness to any new idea that may enhance their performance coupled with confidence in the manner in which a workgroup can create positive changes that would benefit them. This element is a key aspect of development of effective leadership that is organized around considerations of followers’ cognitions about ones role as a leader.
Reward and appreciation are yet other key aspects for development of organizational leadership. Followers consider an individual as an effective leader in case he or she spends time and hardly lets any good individual or group’s accomplishment go unnoticed and rewarded appropriately. Such rewards may involve raising petitions for special allowances for outstanding performers. Apart from monetary rewards, highly performing individuals may be rewarded professionally through promotions so that they are more engaged in decision-making processes. Being able to read the mood in the work environment in case success is not achieved through monetary rewards but other ways such as delegation is one of the vital aspects of development of effective leadership that is tied within the paradigms of followership theories.
Conclusion
Leadership is an essential aspect of every organization. In healthcare settings, the paper argued that it could be approached from two main theoretical paradigms: leadership theories and followership theories since leading is impossible without the people to lead. The people being led must also accept to be led besides embracing the leaders. Consequently, the paper held that effective leaders must be aware of the importance of integration of both leadership and followership theories in the leadership paradigms they adopt. This strategy often involves seeking a mechanism for resolving various challenges that are associated with the application of followership theories in organizational leadership.
Reference List
Atchison, T. (2003). Followership: Practical Guide to Aligning Leaders and Followers. New York: Health Administration Press.
Daft, R. (2005). The Leadership Experience. Toronto: Southwestern.
Dye, C. (2010). Leadership in Healthcare: Essential Values and Skill. New York: Health Administration Press.
Kedharnath, U. (2011). The influence of leaders’ implicit followership theories on employee outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 7(5), 1-24.
Lussier, R., & Achua, C. (2004). Leadership Theory, Application, Skill Development. Minnesota: Southwestern.
Pearce, C., & Conger, J. (2003). Shared leadership: Reframing the hows and whys of leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.