Overview

The industrial era organizations used dualistic leadership theory, which regarded followers as objects of leaders' influence to socialize them into passive followership irrespective of context and outcome. Consequently, organizations focused on leadership and condemned active followership as a toxic behavior that sabotages organizational processes and outcomes. However, the emergence of relational leadership theory in the information era flattened organizational structure, which created a greater need for collaboration within and across sectors. In this new era, organizations cannot survive without responsible individuals who could be productive as both leaders and followers. As a result, organizations are experiencing high demand for active followership throughout organizational ranks, roles, and relationships. Nonetheless, since followership studies are still in their infancy, there is hardly any information on how followers develop and enact active followership. Whereas some studies established followership identity, role, and behaviors, and identified factors influencing their development, none has explored how they do so. This study offers a theory of followership development and enactment anchored in a seamless paradigm that can be used to expand leadership theory beyond dualistic tendencies that absolutized the differences among leadership variables despite their seamlessness. Therefore, it enhances organizational desire and capacity to develop and engage star followers effectively.

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9781532662225

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Research on followership is on the rise, regardless of the bias against studying followers. Why is there a dearth of research on followers? Because the term is seen negatively, as if leaders do all the work and followers passively go along. This is not the case, as followers and leaders collaborate to create leadership. This research looks at followership beyond Western cultures, and is an important contribution to the literature. --Ronald Riggio, Henry R. Kravis, Claremont McKenna College In the desert of research on followership outside of North American/European cultures, David Ofumbi is sending us the equivalent of the manna provided to Israelites in their wandering through the wilderness. If his important work on followership in the Acholi culture is the catalyst for a trend of studying and learning to improve followership in other non-Eurocentric cultures, it will be a significant gift for human development. --Ira Chaleff, Author, The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders David Ofumbi courageously challenges the often assumed 'Great Divide' between leadership and followership through an insightful case study about the Acholi and the government. Timely and timeless. --Tom Steffen, Biola University

Author Information

David Wesley Ofumbi is the team leader of Leadership Development Initiative Africa and an adjunct professor of leadership. He is the author of Identity Transformation: A Study of African Christianity in Christian Community Transformation (2012) and other articles.

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