discussion

Do you agree with the steps mentioned below as a leader and what ideas can you add from your experience that worked for you? What items items you found to be compelling and enlightening?

In terms of a concept leadership is something we all generally strive for. Let us be serious here, I am not working on a degree in organizational followership. I am working on a degree in organizational leadership. I really like what was shared in our text, Northouse (2018, Sec. 12.1) said that is difficult to define follower-ship “because the term conjures up different meanings for people, and the idea of being a follower is positive for some and negative for others.” It really is a difficult thing to relate to sometimes. 

If I am identifying two areas as a follower that I struggle with a leader on it would be communication and work ethic. I expect a leader to have the basic ability to communicate to me, clearly, the objective and how we are expected to achieve the end goal. I struggle as a follower when I am asked to do something with little to no direction. The intentions of the follower should be to lift and support the leader. Leader and follower should have the same goals in mind, and efforts should be one. 

Regarding work ethic, this might be the one thing that is more important to me than communication. I get around communication but if I am following someone that I out work, I have a big problem with that. That is likely a main reason I am not a follower and more of a leader. I have always struggled with leaders that do not put in the work it takes to lead. I do not expect someone to arrive early, stay late and work without a break, but I do expect my leader to work smart, and with intense effort to lead the team. 

For a leader that is leading me, I think I described what I expect above. I can share an example of the type of leader I embrace most. When I was in high school, I had a job setting up all the fixtures and stocking new retail locations. It was a lot of fun we worked late in the evening and I got to meet a lot of great people. One of my favorite people was a manager we had named Chris. Chris was one of the hardest working people I have ever met. When you are stocking a retail location there are a lot of things that must be in certain places. There was very rarely a time we had something out of place because Chris did such an amazing job of communicating with us what was expected. He was not the type of person to just walk around telling people what to do either. He was pitching in to help and would move from group to group, motivating us along the way. Chris was the perfect type of leader for me to follow. He was a strong communicator; you knew he cared about your success and he was going to work extremely hard to help you achieve it.