What is the relationship between leadership and followership?
Among the mass of academic work that studies leadership in all its forms, there is a relatively small amount that focuses on followership. It is true that the term is not very attractive.
However, it is important to understand what is happening from the follower's point of view. How does he/she recognise the authority of his/her manager or any other person representing authority? Followership researchers therefore study the implicit theories of leadership, those personal beliefs, specific to each employee, which have as much impact on the managerial relationship as the leadership style adopted by the manager. Let's take a look at one of these pairs of glasses, our internal models of authority, to test the relevance of this approach.
Insecure' relationships with authority
We didn't wait for the company to start experiencing relationships of authority. We therefore approach our first hierarchical superiors (and those who follow) with preconceived ideas, most often unconscious, about what this relationship may or may not bring us. These assumptions are a synthesis of our first relationships with authority. Authority and all those who embody it are then experienced either as a source of security, development and autonomy, or as a source of insecurity. Clinical psychology, with its theory of attachment (Bowlby, 1969), and a more recent typology applied to management (Kahn and Kram, 1994) make it possible to identify these "internal models of authority" in each individual: among people who have a personal theory described as insecure, there are two variants:
► The dependent employee believes that title and status are very important. They emphasise hierarchy and differences in status, and idealise authority and its representatives. This type of relationship with authority leads them to take few initiatives and prefer to cling to hierarchical rules and roles. This is a particularly "obedient" profile, an employee who tends to really cling to the relationship of authority, i.e. their manager. Because they need a great deal of closeness, they will regularly check that they are doing what is expected of them, even if it means sometimes tiring out the manager when this need is too great.
► At the other end of the spectrum, employees who are contradictory have integrated the belief that they cannot really trust the help of authority figures. For them, authority and its representatives are suspect and to be distrusted; they frequently reject differences in status and deny the importance of hierarchy. It's not uncommon for no n+1 to find favour in their eyes throughout their working life. Managers find this type of employee more difficult to "manage", and for good reason.... The important thing is for these managers to understand that their leadership qualities or efforts are not at issue: it's the follower who is at fault.
While these first two models are an "insecure" version of the relationship with authority, they are perfectly soluble in the workplace. It's just that the first model is best suited to environments where hierarchy and rules are present, whereas the second model is perfectly happy with "freelance" management relationships (which is easily possible with project-based organisation, for example)
Developing confidence
► For interdependent employees, managerial authority is a necessity, but they have internalised the belief that authority is a genuine process of exchange. They have experienced authority relationships where others are available, providing answers and help. This makes him confident in a form of intrepid exploration of the world. These employees never hesitate to share their doubts, fears or different opinions with anyone in a company's hierarchy, because they are sure to be welcomed and listened to (without presuming what will be done with their opinions, of course).
Of course, there is no such thing as a 'pure' model, but simply dominant models, which can evolve through contact with 'meaningful' hierarchical relationships. Our research seems to indicate that inadequate managerial responses (or "accidents of authority") can be used by "insecure" employees to reinforce their belief in their internal models, whereas, on the contrary, management that activates interdependence tends to push these models towards a version that really develops the employee's autonomy.
"Tell me how you lead, and I'll tell you how you obey".
For Self-Leadership, the way in which we grant legitimacy to others also tells us how we exercise our leadership or authority. Dependent managers are often very concerned to preserve relationships and closeness at all costs, even if this means sacrificing or forgetting more objective elements linked to the task in hand. In general, they are very human managers and claim to be so. The counter-dependent manager prefers to invest very little in the relationship (he would lose his independence) so that he appears colder, even a little arrogant. You could say that they are not passionate about the relationship, convinced as they are that you can only rely on yourself. As for the interdependent manager, he's the one who welcomes and trusts others unconditionally, keeping the right distance (neither too far nor too close), but does he really exist?
