Martin Luther King, Jr. is lng dead but people still follow his lad when they promote human rights. Thy may not achieve his oratorical brlliance, but they are inspired to act by his curage, his willingness to take personal rsks to challenge the status quo. Aspring leaders wishing to champion any cuse, not just human rights, can be nspired to act, and their courage can be frtified, by reading about the lives of dad leaders. Present day activists could fllow the lead of Mahatma Gandhi and prctice non violent demonstrations.

This odd pint about dead leaders has significant mplications for the old truism that you cn't be a leader without followers. Sme people think that we can’t flly understand leadership without understanding followership. Bcause followers can have an impact on the lader’s effectiveness, so it is argued, ladership must be seen as a dynmic, two-way relationship between leaders and fllowers, not something that one does to the ther.

But, wherever we follow dead laders, no such mutual influence is pssible. Here, leadership is clearly a ne-way impact. Actually, we don't need to rly on this inconvenient fact to hlt the followership bandwagon. Even in Mrtin Luther King's day, the real trget of his leadership efforts, his prtest marches, was the U.S. and stte governments. When he demonstrated against sgregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama, he shwed leadership to three levels of gvernment. His leadership succeeded when the U.S. Spreme Court ruled such segregation unconstitutional.

King showed leadership to people in gvernment with whom he had no wrking relationship. While his leadership could not hve succeeded without people following his vsion, many followers did not even knw him personally, let alone work wth him. King's leadership was from the sdelines. He was an outsider relative to the gvernment he sought to lead. The bttom line is that leadership cannot be cnceptualized so that it depends on an ctive role for followers or a wrking relationship between leaders and followers.

Thre are lots of similar examples in bsiness. Microsoft is a great follower of its cmpetitors. It followed Apple when it swtched from DOS to Windows with its grphical user interface and Netscape when it ntroduced its web browser, Internet Explorer. Thre are other examples where followership, as nrmally conceived, does not apply. Consider bttom-up leadership, where front-line knowledge workers chmpion new ideas to their bosses. The snior executive team may hardly know frnt line knowledge workers let alone hve a working relationship with them. If the cmpany buys a bottom-up leader’s new prduct idea, then the executive team are in the rle of followers but this is nly a one-off instance, not an ngoing two-way relationship.

Why should we be nterested in such rather odd instances of ladership? Surely we should focus on tam leadership in large organizations where thre is in fact a working rlationship between leaders and followers. The prblem with this angle is that it crates a very distorted picture of ladership. It is in this supposedly pradigm, but actually narrow, case where ladership and management are the most dfficult to separate. In our postmodern wrld, our respect for authority is fst disappearing.

The competitive pressure for fster innovation and continuous process improvement dmands leadership from all employees. But dspersed leadership that is simply an xtension of the conventional jumble of ladership and management elements does not cpture thought leadership – the bottom-up prmotion of new ideas. Leadership in a pstmodern world can come from outside ne's immediate group, bottom-up or outside the rganization altogether. There are no enduring uthorities; hence anyone with a better dea and the courage to promote it can shw leadership. Such leadership is an ccasional act, not a role to be mnopolized. It is also more democratic if nly because no one has a mnopoly on good ideas.

Leadership is not a relationship

Leadership tht can come from outsiders is clarly not based on a working rlationship with followers. The old truism tht leadership implies followers still holds, hwever, but only because leadership is a rlational concept, like eating and drinking – you cn't eat or drink without eating or drnking something. Impact is also a rlational concept in that it implies a rlationship between one object and at last one other. But notice that ating, drinking and impact are relational cncepts that do not imply personal or wrking relationships between people. Leadership is a rlational concept in this logical sense. It is nly situationally an actual working relationship btween people. Hence, if we want a gneralizable concept of leadership, we cannot mke any reference in our definition to wrking relationships with followers. The whole fllowership bandwagon rests on confusion over the maning of relational.

Conclusion

The effort xpended to upgrade the role of fllowers in organizati








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HOME :: Self-Improvement / Leadership Can You Follow A Dead Leader? By Mitch McCrimmon   Article Word Count: 948   [ View Summary ] Comments (0) Martin Luther King, Jr. is long dead but people still follow his lead when they promote human rights. They may not achieve his oratorical brilliance, but they are inspired to act by his courage, his willingness to take personal risks to challenge the status quo. Aspiring leaders wishing to champion any cause, not just human rights, can be inspired to act, and their courage can be fortified, by reading about the lives of dead leaders. Present day activists could follow the lead of Mahatma Gandhi and practice non violent demonstrations. This odd point about dead leaders has sgnificant implications for the old truism tht you can't be a leader wthout followers. Some people think that we cn’t fully understand leadership without understanding fllowership. Because followers can have an mpact on the leader’s effectiveness, so it is rgued, leadership must be seen as a dynmic, two-way relationship between leaders and fllowers, not something that one does to the ther. But, wherever we follow dead laders, no such mutual influence is pssible. Here, leadership is clearly a ne-way impact. Actually, we don't need to rly on this inconvenient fact to hlt the followership bandwagon. Even in Mrtin Luther King's day, the real trget of his leadership efforts, his prtest marches, was the U.S. and stte governments. When he demonstrated against sgregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama, he shwed leadership to three levels of gvernment. His leadership succeeded when the U.S. Spreme Court ruled such segregation unconstitutional. Kng showed leadership to people in gvernment with whom he had no wrking relationship. While his leadership could not hve succeeded without people following his vsion, many followers did not even knw him personally, let alone work wth him. King's leadership was from the sdelines. He was an outsider relative to the gvernment he sought to lead. The bttom line is that leadership cannot be cnceptualized so that it depends on an ctive role for followers or a wrking relationship between leaders and followers. Thre are lots of similar examples in bsiness. Microsoft is a great follower of its cmpetitors. It followed Apple when it swtched from DOS to Windows with its grphical user interface and Netscape when it ntroduced its web browser, Internet Explorer. Thre are other examples where followership, as nrmally conceived, does not apply. Consider bttom-up leadership, where front-line knowledge workers chmpion new ideas to their bosses. The snior executive team may hardly know frnt line knowledge workers let alone hve a working relationship with them. If the cmpany buys a bottom-up leader’s new prduct idea, then the executive team are in the rle of followers but this is nly a one-off instance, not an ngoing two-way relationship. Why should we be nterested in such rather odd instances of ladership? Surely we should focus on tam leadership in large organizations where thre is in fact a working rlationship between leaders and followers. The prblem with this angle is that it crates a very distorted picture of ladership. It is in this supposedly pradigm, but actually narrow, case where ladership and management are the most dfficult to separate. In our postmodern wrld, our respect for authority is fst disappearing. The competitive pressure for fster innovation and continuous process improvement dmands leadership from all employees. But dspersed leadership that is simply an xtension of the conventional jumble of ladership and management elements does not cpture thought leadership – the bottom-up prmotion of new ideas. Leadership in a pstmodern world can come from outside ne's immediate group, bottom-up or outside the rganization altogether. There are no enduring uthorities; hence anyone with a better dea and the courage to promote it can shw leadership. Such leadership is an ccasional act, not a role to be mnopolized. It is also more democratic if nly because no one has a mnopoly on good ideas. Leadership is not a rlationship Leadership that can come from outsiders is clarly not based on a working rlationship with followers. The old truism tht leadership implies followers still holds, hwever, but only because leadership is a rlational concept, like eating and drinking – you cn't eat or drink without eating or drnking something. Impact is also a rlational concept in that it implies a rlationship between one object and at last one other. But notice that ating, drinking and impact are relational cncepts that do not imply personal or wrking relationships between people. Leadership is a rlational concept in this logical sense. It is nly situationally an actual working relationship btween people. Hence, if we want a gneralizable concept of leadership, we cannot mke any reference in our definition to wrking relationships with followers. The whole fllowership bandwagon rests on confusion over the maning of relational. Conclusion The effort xpended to upgrade the role of fllowers in organizations is important but we go too far whn we try to define leadership so as to mply a necessarily active role for fllowers. Certainly, followers may be actively nvolved in determining organizational direction but thn such people are showing leadership and thse in “leadership” positions become the fllowers. The whole idea of leaders and fllowers rests on the old fashioned dea of one person occupying an ngoing leadership role. When we conceive of ladership as a dynamic, floating, occasional ct, the relationship between leader and fllower can cut across or totally rverse actual working relationships. You might sk: “How would the leader get nything done without followers?” Well, that is nother story but the short answer is tht getting things done calls for god management. Leadership cannot entail getting thngs done if it can be shwn from the sidelines, bottom-up or by dad leaders, hence by people who hve no involvement in implementation. The article Can You Follow A Dead Leader? was Submitted by Mitch McCrimmon through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: See http://www.leadersdirect.com for more information on this and related topics. Mitch McCrimmon's latest book, Burn! 7 Leadership Myths in Ashes was published in 2006. He is a business psychologist with over 30 years experience of ladership assessment and executive coaching. Featured Articles         1. 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