Followers have long functioned as the silent partners in the leader–follower relationship. Most press reports focus on the actions of executives, politicians, and other leaders, not on their subordinates. 1 Billions are spent every year on training leaders; very little is spent on training followers. There are thousands of academic books and articles on leadership but only a handful on followership.

Ignoring followers is shortsighted. Followers do most of the work and therefore deserve the lion’s share of credit for a group’s success. And the old adage is true: There can be no leaders without followers. Leaders can retain their positions only if they have the support of subordinates. While leaders largely determine the ethical direction of organizations, this does not excuse followers from their moral responsibilities. Followers have a choice whether or not to follow a particular leader, to maintain the status quo or to work for change, to obey commands or to object, to draw attention to wrongdoing or to keep silent.

Fortunately, there are signs that the voices of followers are increasingly being heard. Recently an entire conference was devoted to followership and a new follower interest group formed as part of the International Leadership Association. Books and articles about followers and followership are becoming more common. Global developments that suggest that the power and influence of followers is increasing at the same time the power and influence of leaders is shrinking. 2 Time magazine named the Protestor as its Person of the Year in 2011. Editors highlighted the role that ordinary people played in the Arab Spring, which toppled repressive governments in the Middle East, as well as the rise of the conservative Tea Party in the United States and the Occupy Movement that focused international attention to the growing divide between rich and poor. Harvard professor Barbara Kellerman traces the growing power of followers back to the 1960s. Widespread protests on college campuses, as well as the civil rights and antiwar movements, ushered in a new era of equalitarianism and skepticism about hierarchy and institutions. She also points out that the information revolution has converted employees into knowledge workers who generally know more than their bosses. Consumers can now attack companies online; governments are finding it increasingly difficult to censor information.

With the growing influence of followers in mind, this chapter examines the particular ethical moral responsibilities associated with the follower role and discusses principles and strategies we can use to meet the ethical challenges of followership.

The Ethical Challenges of Followership

Followers, like leaders, face a special set of demands or challenges based on the nature of the role they play. Followers are charged with carrying out the work and implementing the directives of leaders. They have less power and status than leaders do. In light of these realities, here are important moral challenges confronted by followers.

The Challenge of Obligation

All followers have obligations to their leaders as well as to the institutions that provide them with paychecks, retirement plans, friendships, prestige, training, fulfilling work, and other benefits. Obligations don’t end at the organizational door, however. Followers must frequently fulfill duties to external stakeholders. For instance, government employees “owe” it to taxpayers to use their money wisely by working hard and spending carefully. Members of a law firm owe their clients the best possible representation as well as accurate billing.

Determining minimal responsibilities is easier than deciding how far follower obligations should extend. At the very least, employees shouldn’t rip off their employers by showing up late (or not at all), doing nothing, and stealing property. Yet some workers are asked to sacrifice too much for their organizations. Consider the case of technology and consulting firms that demand that employees travel constantly, work nights and weekends, and attend meetings instead of their kids’ school events. Giving in to the excessive demands of workaholic organizations generates stress and burnout, endangering mental health, marriages, and relationships with children. Volunteers must also determine what they owe their leaders and groups. Religious cults are criticized for demanding that followers devote long hours to the cause, turn over their paychecks to leaders, and cut off their connections to families and friends.

Every situation is different, so followers have to determine if they are meeting their ethical obligations or giving too little or too much. However, the questions below can serve as a guide to sorting out the obligations we owe as followers.

· Am I doing all I reasonably can to carry out my tasks and further the mission of my organization? What more could I do?

· Am I earning the salary and benefits I receive?

· Can I fulfill my organizational obligations and, at the same time, maintain a healthy personal life and productive relationships?

· If not, what can I do to bring my work and personal life into balance?

The Challenge of Obedience

Followers must routinely obey orders and directives, even the ones they don’t like. Deciding when to disobey is the challenge. There’s no doubt that following authority can drive followers to engage in illegal and immoral activities in which they would never participate on their own. This point was driven home in experiments carried out by Stanley Milgram in the 1970s. 3 Students playing the role of teacher were asked to administer shocks to a learner, hidden behind a partition, when the learner answered incorrectly. Subjects continued to ramp up the voltage of the shocks at the request of the experimenter, even though the learner (really an actor who received no shock at all) expressed more and more discomfort. Two thirds of the students obeyed the experimenter despite the pleas and screams of the learner.

Milgram’s findings only confirm what has been repeated time and again in real life. Syrian soldiers who used poison gas on civilians, members of Rwandan death squads, and Saddam Hussein’s torturers committed atrocities because they were “following orders.” However, following orders is no excuse. This is called the Nuremberg principle. 4 At the Nuremberg war crime trials following World War II, the tribunal rejected claims that atrocities were justified because German defendants were obeying authority. Based on this principle, the U.S. Army punishes those who follow illegal orders.

Every follower has to consider such factors as these: (1) Does this order appear to call for unethical behavior? (2) Would I engage in this course of action if I weren’t ordered to? (3) What are the potential consequences for others if these directions are followed? For myself? (4) Does obedience threaten the mission and health of the organization as a whole? (5) What steps should I take if I decide to disobey?

The Challenge of Cynicism

It’s easy for followers to become cynical. They don’t have much power, and they are frequently left out of the information loop and important decisions. Often, the choices and actions of their leaders appear arbitrary if not stupid. Surveys reveal that 43–48% of American employees are cynical about their workplaces. 5 Skepticism can be justified (just look at what happened to thousands of loyal, hard-working employees at Enron, WorldCom, Countrywide, Washington Mutual Savings and Loan, and elsewhere). Then, too, cynical employees often have a more realistic perspective on the problems facing their organizations and are more resistant to leaders who want them to engage in unethical behavior. Nevertheless, cynicism acts like acid, reducing commitment levels, destroying trust, lowering job satisfaction, increasing resistance to change, generating negative feelings, and lowering both individual and organizational performance. 6 Few of us give our best effort when we are skeptical about the organizations we’ve committed ourselves to. The more cynical we become, the more energy we put into critiquing and complaining and the less we devote to the task at hand. Followers must walk a fine line between healthy skepticism, which prevents them from being exploited and alerts them to unethical behavior, and unhealthy cynicism, which undermines their efforts and those of the group as a whole.

Scholars report that dissatisfied employees choose among four possible responses: exit, loyalty, voice, and neglect (ELVN). 7 Workers either exit (leave) the organization, demonstrate loyalty by waiting patiently for things to get better, give voice to their concerns, or neglect their jobs by spending less time at work and withdrawing from relationships. Cynics generally don’t express their concerns or remain loyal (the most constructive options). Instead they opt to neglect their responsibilities or to leave the organization.

The Challenge of Dissent

Followers frequently take issue with policies, procedures, orders, working conditions, pay, benefits, values, and other factors. They can’t make the changes themselves, so they must express their disagreement to those who can. At this point, followers must make a number of strategic decisions. To begin with, they have to determine when to speak up and when to keep silent. There may be several points of contention, but generally followers have to “pick their battles.” Raising too many issues may turn leaders off and can label the follower as a whiner. On the other hand, silence can be immoral, as in the case of the engineer who discovers his company is shipping defective airplane parts but decides to keep this information to himself. (See Case Study 9.1 , “Helping Harvard Medical School Make the Grade,” to learn more about how one group of followers successfully challenged the system.)

Once the decision to protest has been made, followers must then determine the following:

· How to express dissent (when, what to say, through what channels)

· Whom to contact with their concerns (immediate supervisor, professional supervisor, etc.)

· How to respond if their opinions are rejected

· When to go outside the organization with concerns and complaints

Arizona State University Professor Jeffrey Kassing reports that workers employ five strategies to express dissent to their leaders. 8 Direct-factual appeals are based on physical evidence, organizational policies and procedures, and personal experience. Solution presentations offer ideas for resolving the issue either in addition to, or instead of, presenting the facts. Repetition describes consistent attempts to draw attention to a topic over a period of time. Circumvention means taking dissent to someone above an immediate supervisor. Threatening resignation is vowing to quit in order to get supervisors and management to respond. (Take Self-Assessment 9.1 to determine how likely you are to employ each tactic.)

Employees rate direct-factual appeals and solution presentations (prosocial strategies) as most effective, in part because these strategies are less threatening to the image or “face” of leaders. Circumvention and repetition pose more face threat and thus are riskier, frequently damaging the subordinate–supervisor relationship. Threatening resignation is the riskiest tactic, and supervisors and organizational members rate this strategy as least competent. With this in mind, start with prosocial strategies when expressing upward dissent. Gather evidence and propose solutions. Meet first with your supervisor before approaching senior leaders. If you must repeatedly raise your concern, continue to offer evidence and solutions. Only threaten to quit as a last resort.

Self-Assessment 9.1

The Upward Dissent Scale

Instructions

Think about how you communicate to your leaders when you have a problem or concern. Rate each of the following items on a scale from strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neither agree nor disagree (3), agree (4), strongly agree (5).

1. I talk to someone higher up in the organization than my direct supervisor.

2. I gather evidence to support my concern.

3. I bring up my concern numerous times.

4. I say I’ll quit if the organization doesn’t do something about the problem.

5. I focus on the facts surrounding the issue.

6. I raise the issue repeatedly.

7. I suggest that I’m considering quitting if the organization doesn’t do something.

8. I talk to an organizational officer higher in the chain of command.

9. I threaten to resign if my concerns aren’t addressed.

10. I present solutions not just problems.

11. I talk to my boss’s boss.

12. I make several attempts to draw attention to the concern.

13. I use facts to support my claim.

14. I claim that the problem is serious enough to make me quit.

15. I go above my direct supervisor’s head to voice my concern.

16. I continue to mention my concern until it gets addressed.

17. I go over my boss’s head.

18. I repeat my concern as often as possible.

19. I threaten to quit.

20. I present a well-thought-out solution to the problem.

Scoring

Total possible scores for each influence strategy range from 5 to 25. Add up your scores for the items in each category. The higher the score, the more often you use that tactic when expressing dissent to those above you in the organizational hierarchy.

· Prosocial Items 2, 5, 10, 13, & 20 ______

· Threatening Resignation Items 4, 7, 9, 14, & 19 ______

· Circumvention Items 1, 8, 11, 15, & 17 ______

· Repetition Items 3, 6, 12, 16, & 18. ______

SOURCE: Kassing, J. W., & Kava, W. (2013). Assessing disagreement expressed to management: Development of the Upward Dissent Scale. Communication Research Reports, 30, p. 56., reprinted by permission of the Eastern Communication Association, www.ecasite.org .

The Challenge of Bad News

Few of us have a problem with telling our superiors what they want to hear. For example, we’ve reached our goals, sales are up, the project is under budget, and the software implementation will be done on time. Delivering bad news is much riskier. Telling our bosses what they don’t want to hear can incur their wrath, bring penalties, and seriously damage our standing in the organization. The risk is highest when we are directly at fault. No wonder that researchers report that subordinates routinely keep negative information from their superiors, including feedback about leader behaviors that could be undermining the group’s success. 9

Organizations can pay a high price when followers hide or cover up bad news, deny responsibility, or shift blame. Leaders can’t take corrective steps if they don’t know a problem exists. Their failure to address serious deficiencies, like safety hazards and accounting fraud, can destroy an organization. ( Case Study 9.2 describes how followers at one organization failed to speak up, with deadly consequences.) Further, leaders who don’t get feedback about their ineffective habits can’t change these patterns. Teachers who use lots of “ums” and “ahs” in their lectures, for example, need feedback about their speech behaviors from students if they are to eliminate these language features. Finally, denying accountability and shifting blame undermines trust and focuses people on defending themselves instead of on solving the problem.

Declaring that ethical followers should faithfully deliver bad news and accept responsibility for their actions is easier than doing so ourselves. Being the bearer of bad tidings takes courage, as we’ll see later in the chapter. The challenge is not so much in determining what to do but in following through. As in delivering all messages, selecting the right time, place, and channel is critical. Significant problems should be brought to light as soon as possible, when the receiver is most receptive, and delivered face to face, not through e-mail or other less personal channels.

William J. LeMessurier is an excellent example of someone who didn’t hesitate to deliver bad news that revealed his errors. LeMessurier was the lead structural engineer for the Citicorp tower in New York City, which was completed in 1979. After the building was finished, he discovered that the structure’s design and braces made it susceptible to wind damage. The building would likely collapse in a violent storm, which might occur every 16 years. LeMessurier could have kept silent. Instead, he put his professional reputation on the line and admitted his mistakes to the architect and to top Citicorp officers. Working together, LeMessurier and company officials developed a plan to fix the brace problem. In 3 months, the mistake was fixed. The project manager for the project described the incident and LeMessurier this way: “It started with a guy who stood up and said, ‘I got a problem, I made the problem, let’s fix the problem.’” 10

Case Study 9.1

Helping Harvard Medical School Make the Grade

In 2008, Harvard Medical School received an F grade from the American Medical Student Association for how it tracked and controlled money from the drug industry. Some Harvard Medical School faculty received hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from pharmaceutical firms for consulting and speaking. The school’s former dean, for example, sat on the board of Baxter International, a medical supply company, where he received up to $197,000 a year in addition to his salary from the college. Companies like Merck and Pfizer also gave trips, meals, and tickets to faculty and their families while underwriting endowed chairs, faculty prizes, and research programs. Disclosure rules were lax, and professors didn’t have to reveal their industry ties in class.

A few Harvard students became concerned that the flow of pharmaceutical money was biasing material presented in the classroom. First-year medical student Mark Zerden became suspicious when his pharmacology professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs while belittling a student who asked whether the drugs had side effects. Zerden did online research and discovered that the instructor was a paid consultant to 10 drug companies, including five that made cholesterol medications. Another student noted, “Before coming here, I had no idea how much influence companies had on medical education. And it’s something that’s purposely meant to be under the table, providing information under the guise of education when that information is also presented for marketing purposes.” 1

The concerns of a few students soon sparked a movement to limit the influence of pharmaceutical money at the university and its related teaching hospitals. Along with sympathetic faculty, 200 Harvard medical students convinced administrators to adopt a requirement that all professors and lecturers must disclose any industry ties in class. (One professor had 47 such company affiliations.) The school dean formed a committee made up of faculty, students, and administrators to look at conflict of interest policies. The task force adopted new guidelines that (1) limited industry advertising and exhibitions on campus, (2) called for review of faculty members’ participation on for-profit biomedical boards, (3) prohibited faculty participation in industry speakers bureaus, (4) banned industry gifts, meals, and travel, and (5) placed stricter limits on the amount of money professors and lecturers can earn from outside sources.

At the same time that Harvard students were lobbying for changes, the Massachusetts legislature passed limits on gifts to physicians, and U.S. Senator Charles Grassley held hearings into corporate funding for three Harvard psychiatrists who advocated for the use of antipsychotic drugs with children. These researchers failed to report at least $4.2 million in industry payments. One promoted the use of the medicine Risperdal while working for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, the drug’s maker. He signed off on a scientific abstract he hadn’t authored and provided advice to Johnson & Johnson on how to deal with the fact that children given placebos did just as well as those given the medication.

Harvard student efforts to eliminate conflicts of interest involving medical companies encountered significant resistance. A smaller, rival group signed a petition calling for continuing the school’s strong ties to the biomedical industry. Said the leader of this group, “To say that because these industry sources are inherently biased, physicians should never listen to them, is wrong.” 2 One professor argued that Harvard should be even more aggressive in seeking private industry funds. “You see industry interaction has produced far more good than harm,” he argued. “Harvard absolutely could get more from industry but I think they’re very skittish. There’s a huge opportunity we ought to mine.” 3

Harvard administrators tried to muzzle the conflict of interest movement. After students talked with the New York Times, the school adopted a policy requiring that every interaction between students and the media be coordinated through the Office of the Dean of Students and the Office of Public Affairs. (It later dropped the new policy after criticism from both inside and outside the university.) A Merck employee admitted taking pictures of students protesting the influence of drug companies at Harvard, though he claimed it was for “personal” reasons and not to intimidate protestors.

Harvard Medical School’s new policy helped raise its grade from the American Medical School Student Association from an F to a B. The grade likely would have been higher, but Harvard still allows faculty to consult and work with businesses and permits pharmaceutical companies to fund postgraduate medical courses. Harvard isn’t the only school to put stronger limits on the relationships between faculty and medical device manufacturers and drug makers. The University of Colorado School of Medicine approved a new policy that forbids professors from giving drug company lectures. The University of Pennsylvania clarified a similar policy, and University of Pittsburgh evaluated the contracts of faculty who received drug company money for speaking. Stanford punished five medical faculty members who violated the university’s conflict of interest policies.

Discussion Probes

1. Do you think drug company money produces more good than harm for medical schools?

2. What limits, if any, should be placed on what medical faculty and researchers receive from pharmaceutical firms?

3. What risks did students take by protesting Harvard’s conflict of interest policies?

4. Do you think that Harvard students would have been successful in changing the school’s conflict of interest policy if the state legislature and U.S. Senate had not also been concerned about the issue?

5. Have you ever been in a class where you thought that the professor was presenting biased information because of his or her work outside the university? Did you express your opinion to the instructor, fellow students, and/or administrators? Why or why not?

6. What did you learn about expressing dissent from this case?

Notes

1. Wilson, D. (2009a, March 3).

2. Wilson D. (2009a, March 3).

3. Wilson (2009a, March 3). Additional sources for this section are Expert or shill (2008); Harvard Medical School conflict of interest (2010); Orstein and Webber (2011); D. Wilson (March 3, 2009b; March 4, 2009; September 2, 2009; July 22, 2010).

Meeting the Moral Demands of Followership: Principles and Strategies

This section of the chapter introduces key concepts and tactics designed to help you master the ethical duties of the followership role. To be an ethical, effective follower, you will need to overcome unhealthy motivations, act in an exemplary manner, engage with leaders, demonstrate courage and support, learn how to manage and lead up, and determine when to bring organizational misconduct to the attention of outsiders.

Overcoming Unhealthy Motivations

All too often, followers seek leaders for the wrong reasons. These unhealthy motivations encourage subordinates to tolerate and support the bad leaders described in the last chapter . Toxic followership makes toxic leadership possible. Meeting the ethical challenges of followership, then, begins with avoiding these motivational traps. Professor Jean Lipman-Blumen argues that there are a number of factors that “seduce” us into toxic followership: 11

· Our need for authority (parentlike) figures

· Our need for security and certainty, which prompts us to abandon our freedom

· Our need to feel chosen or special, which we meet by following a leader apparently engaged in a greater cause

· Our need to be part of a community

· Our fear of being ostracized and isolated from the group

· Our fear that we are powerless to challenge a bad leader

· Our anxiety about life and death, which makes us vulnerable to the illusion that heroic, godlike leaders can protect us

· Our need to be at the center of the action in order to feel alive, meaningful, and in control

· Our desire to identify with a noble vision (which may turn out to be toxic)

· Our feelings of anxiety, caused by uncertainty, change, and crisis, that drive us to leaders for protection

· Our worship of achievement, which makes us admire gifted individuals who may have serious flaws

· Our need for self-esteem, which we meet by aligning ourselves with successful leaders (even when they have toxic qualities)

Lipman-Blumen offers five strategies that can keep us from becoming dependent on toxic leaders while helping us become self-reliant instead. One, recognize that anxiety is a fact of life. Any serious change sparks fear and uncertainty, but we need to step out and take risks despite our fears. Two, learn to act independently—develop the leader within. Become proactive rather than reactive. Work with others to develop democratic organizations where many individuals share leadership responsibilities. Three, demand leaders who tell the truth, no matter how unpleasant that truth might be. Such leaders disillusion us and force us to take our follower duties seriously. Four, beware of leaders with grandiose visions who divide the world into us versus them (see the discussion of moral exclusion in Chapter 7 ). Five, don’t let a few individuals self-select for top positions. View leadership as responsibility to be shared by a variety of group members. Draft worthy candidates for leadership roles based on their character, and limit their terms of service; rotate individuals in and out of leadership positions.

Christian Thoroughgood and his colleagues argue that certain types of individuals are more susceptible to destructive leaders. 12 They identify two categories of vulnerable followers: conformers and colluders. Conformers are driven by obedience. Passive, these subordinates only engage in unethical and illegal activities when directed to do so by their toxic leaders. Colluders, on the other hand, are actively engaged in supporting the leader’s unhealthy goals. They willingly engage in destructive acts. The three conformer subtypes and two colluder subtypes are described below.

1. Conformers: lost souls. Lost souls are particularly needy, seeking affection, safety, certainty, or a sense of purpose. These individuals also have an unclear self-concept (which is easily influenced) and suffer from low self-esteem. Lost souls identify with their leaders and obey out of loyalty, hoping to gain their leaders’ approval.

2. Conformers: authoritarians. Authoritarians believe that leaders have a right to exercise power and they obey orders—including unethical ones—without question. Authoritarians are generally intolerant of outsiders, prefer order and structure, and believe that the world is fair and just. In this fair and just world, victims deserve to suffer or fail because of their behavior or character.

3. Conformers: bystanders. Bystanders are more passive than lost souls or authoritarians. They are motivated by fear, believing they will be punished if they don’t conform to the leader’s wishes. Bystanders have low self-evaluations but are skilled at monitoring their behavior to conform to the wishes of the leader and the group. They tend to be introverts and lack the courage to confront unethical leaders.

4. Colluders: opportunists. Opportunists are ambitious and willingly follow destructive leaders to gain money, power, prestige, or status. Like unethical leaders, opportunists are often greedy, manipulative, and narcissistic. They lack self-control as well.

5. Colluders: acolytes. Acolytes are “true believers” who share the values and goals of their toxic leaders. They have a clear sense of themselves and behave in a way that is consistent with their identities. Acolytes don’t seek rewards like opportunists. Instead, they eagerly participate in unethical and illegal activities because they support the group’s destructive mission.

Organizations can take steps to protect themselves from destructive leadership by reducing the susceptibility of followers. Allow followers to challenge their leaders and hold those leaders accountable for unethical behavior. Avoid micromanagement, authoritarian leadership styles, rigid bureaucracies, top-down decision making, and large status and power differentials. Screen out job applicants that demonstrate authoritarian, Machiavellian, and narcissistic tendencies.

Servant (Exemplary) Followership

Business professor, consultant, and author Robert Kelley believes that servant followership is more important than servant leadership. He points out that most people spend most of their time in follower roles and that (as we noted earlier) followers contribute the most to organizational success. From an ethical perspective, seeking to be a follower rather than a leader reduces the destructive competition and conflict that occur when individuals compete against each other for leadership positions. Servant followers are more likely to build trust and keep the focus on organizational goals. They avoid the temptation to adopt authoritarian, self-centered styles when they do land in leadership roles. 13

Kelley uses the term exemplary to describe ideal servant followers. The best followers score high in two dimensions: independent, critical thinking and active engagement. They think for themselves and, at the same time, take initiative. Outstanding followers contribute innovative ideas and go beyond what is required. Leaders can count on them to take on new challenges, to follow through on projects without much supervision, to disagree constructively, and to think through the implications of their actions.

Kelley contrasts exemplary followers with their less effective counterparts based on the independent thinking and engagement dimensions described below. (You can determine your followership type by completing Self-Assessment 9.2 .)

Passive followers demonstrate little original thought or commitment. They rely heavily on leaders for directions and meet only minimal expectations. Kelley compares them to sheep because they follow herd instincts: “They can be trained to perform necessary simple tasks and then wander around while awaiting further directions.” 14

Conformist followers are more enthusiastic than their passive coworkers but still depend on leaders to tell them what to do. They follow exactly what the leader says and only tell the leader what he or she wants to hear. Not surprisingly, insecure leaders prefer this type of subordinate.

Alienated followers are highly independent thinkers who are only minimally committed to their roles and organizations. They put their energies into fighting the leader or the organization instead of into reaching shared goals. Alienated followers are highly cynical. They may have started out as exemplary followers but became disillusioned with the leader or the group as a whole.

Pragmatic followers fall in the middle of the independent thinking and engagement continua. Pragmatists often have been victimized by frequent layoffs, restructurings, and leadership changes. They are more interested in surviving than in serving.

Kelley outlines five behavior patterns that you need to adopt if you hope to become an exemplary follower.

1. Leading yourself. Excellent followers know how to lead themselves. They step up to their responsibilities and view their work as equal in importance to that of leaders because they recognize that implementation is critical to success.

2. Commit and focus. Exemplary followers are committed to ideas and causes bigger than themselves. They look beyond their personal careers and needs to serve an elevating purpose like fighting illness or protecting the environment. Because they’re committed to a broad principle, exemplary followers feel less need for status or titles. They consider leaders part of the team and will take steps to keep the leader’s ego from getting in the way of achieving the goal.

3. Develop competence and credibility. Enthusiastic commitment is not enough. Or, as Kelley tells his students and clients, “Highly committed and motivated incompetence is still incompetence.” 15 Exemplary followers set high personal standards that are more strenuous than those set by the leader or the organization as a whole. They are proactive, taking advantage of continuing education and performance development opportunities. Outstanding followers also know their weaknesses and take steps to compensate either by acquiring the necessary skills or by stepping aside to let others complete the task.

4. Use your courageous conscience. Exemplary followers are very concerned about the ethics of their actions even if their leaders are not. Such followers serve as ethical watchdogs. They refuse to abandon personal principles but challenge immoral directives instead (see the discussion of courageous followership in the next section ).

5. Disagree agreeably. Exemplary followers recognize that their job is to make the job of the leader easier, not harder. They work cooperatively with the leader. However, when conflicts arise and decisions must be challenged, outstanding followers disagree using the following strategies:

· Be proactive. Assume that the leader wants the best and operate from that assumption. Sometimes leaders slip because they lack information or are out of touch with followers.

· Gather the facts. Gathering solid evidence makes it easier to disagree and to object in good conscience.

· Seek wise counsel. Find others, most often outsiders, who can provide good advice, and test the strength of your position.

· Play by the rules. Exemplary followers want to be seen as part of the community and do so by working within established guidelines whenever possible.

· Persuade by speaking the language of the organization. Proactive followers draw upon the purpose and values of the organization to make their case.

· Prepare your courage to go over heads when absolutely necessary. Exemplary followers don’t just go along but test their courage regularly by challenging small ethical breaches.

· Take collective action or plan well to stand alone. Chances of success are greater if you work with others, but prepare to step out on your own. Develop contingency plans (other job prospects, savings accounts) when acting individually.

Self-Assessment 9.2

Followership Styles

Followership Questionnaire

For each statement, think of a followership situation and how you acted. Choose a number from 0 to 6 to indicate the extent to which the statement describes you, with 0 indicating “rarely applies” and 6 indicating “almost always.”

· _____ 1. Does your work help you fulfill some societal goal or personal dream that is important to you?

· _____ 2. Are your personal work goals aligned with the organization’s priority goals?

· _____ 3. Are you highly committed to and energized by your work and organization, giving them your best ideas and performance?

· _____ 4. Does your enthusiasm also spread to and energize your coworkers?

· _____ 5. Instead of waiting for or merely accepting what the leader tells you, do you personally identify which organizational activities are most critical for achieving the organization’s priority goals?

· _____ 6. Do you actively develop a distinctive competence in those critical activities so that you become more valuable to the leader and the organization?

· _____ 7. When starting a new job or assignment, do you promptly build a record of successes in tasks that are important to the leader?

· _____ 8. Can the leader give you a difficult assignment without the benefit of much supervision, knowing that you will meet your deadline with highest-quality work and that you will “fill in the cracks” if need be?

· _____ 9. Do you take the initiative to seek out and successfully complete assignments that go above and beyond your job?

· _____ 10. When you are not the leader of a group project, do you still contribute at a high level, often doing more than your share?

· _____ 11. Do you independently think up and champion new ideas that will contribute significantly to the leader’s or the organization’s goals?

· _____ 12. Do you try to solve the tough problems (technical or organizational), rather than look to the leader to do it for you?

· _____ 13. Do you help out coworkers, making them look good, even when you don’t get any credit?

· _____ 14. Do you help the leader or group see both the upside potential and downside risks of ideas or plans, playing the devil’s advocate if need be?

· _____ 15. Do you understand the leader’s needs, goals, and constraints and work hard to help meet them?

· _____ 16. Do you actively and honestly own up to your strengths and weaknesses rather than put off evaluation?

· _____ 17. Do you make a habit of internally questioning the wisdom of the leader’s decision rather than just doing what you are told?

· _____ 18. When the leader asks you to do something that runs contrary to your professional or personal preferences, do you say “no” rather than “yes”?

· _____ 19. Do you act on your own ethical standards rather than the leader’s or the group’s standards?

· _____ 20. Do you assert your views on important issues, even though it might mean conflict with your group or reprisals from the leader?

Finding Your Followership Style

Use the scoring key below to score your answers to the questions.

Add up your scores on the Independent Thinking items. Record the total on a vertical axis, as in the graph below. Repeat the procedure for the Active Engagement items, and mark the total on a horizontal axis. Now, plot your scores on the graph by drawing perpendicular lines connecting your two scores.

The juxtaposition of these two dimensions forms the basis upon which people classify followership styles.

SOURCE: From The Power of Followership by Robert E. Kelley, copyright © 1992 by Consultants to Executives and Organizations, Ltd. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

Engaged Followership

Like Robert Kelley, Barbara Kellerman uses engagement with leaders as a criterion for distinguishing between good and bad followers. Kellerman believes that some level of follower engagement is always superior to not being engaged at all. Based on this premise, she places followers into these categories: 16

1. Isolates. Isolates can barely be categorized as followers, because they are detached and alienated. By doing and saying nothing, isolates increase the power of leaders who already occupy positions of authority. The millions of Americans who don’t vote are isolates. Their lack of engagement means that they exert minimal influence over the direction of the country.

2. Bystanders. Bystanders have a low level of engagement with their leaders. They observe but make a conscious choice to stand aside. Their decision to remain neutral serves as a form of tacit support for the status quo. Ordinary Germans who stood by during Hitler’s regime can be classified as bystanders. By remaining silent, they enabled Hitler to wage world war and carry out the Holocaust.

3. Participants. Participants have a moderate level of engagement. They actively support or oppose their leaders by investing their time, loyalty, and money in order to exert influence. Middle managers and research scientists at Merck Pharmaceuticals served as participants during the development of the now-discredited pain drug Vioxx. They actively promoted the painkiller in spite of evidence linking it to a greatly increased risk of heart attack.

4. Activists. Activists are highly engaged with their leaders. They have a heavy investment in the group or organization and its leadership. Activists work hard on behalf of their leaders or work just as hard to undermine and remove them when they fall short. Under Hitler, Nazi Party members served as supportive activist followers. They helped keep Hitler in power, carried out Nazi programs, and so on. More recently, members of Voice of the Faithful, a group of American Catholic laypeople, served as activist opponents. They helped oust Boston bishop Bernard Law for his handling of the priest sex abuse scandal in his archdiocese.

5. Diehards. Diehards are the most engaged group of followers. They are willing to risk all, including death, for their causes and leaders (or against leaders they oppose). Totally dedicated, they are defined by their commitment to their leaders and groups. According to Kellerman, “Being a Diehard is all-consuming. It is who you are. It determines what you do.” 17 Hitler’s inner circle could be classified as diehards. The same can be said for members of many elite military groups.

Kellerman acknowledges that engagement alone does not make someone a good follower. Obviously, Germans who engaged with Hitler should be classified as toxic, not good. She notes, “The question is, Willingness to engage to what end, for what purpose?” 18 She introduces motivation as a second criterion for distinguishing between bad and good followership. Good followers pursue the public interest, not selfish interest.

Kellerman urges us to take advantage of the growing power of followership, to oppose bad leadership as soon as it appears. The longer we wait to speak up, the harder it is to stop unethical leaders. Resistance is more effective if we prepare ourselves by gathering facts, collecting resources, seeking counsel, and developing a careful strategy. If at all possible, we should join forces with other followers when we oppose unethical leaders.

Courageous Followership

Government and business consultant Ira Chaleff believes that followership requires courage. 19 He defines courage as accepting a higher level of risk. It’s risky for a camp counselor to confront a camp director who is demeaning children, for a shift supervisor to oppose new work rules developed by the plant manager, or for a member of the cabinet to challenge the decision of the president of the United States. Acting courageously is easier if followers recognize that their ultimate allegiance is to the purpose and values of the organization and not to the leader. Chaleff identifies five types of follower courage.

1. The courage to assume responsibility. The first dimension of courageous followership specifically addresses the challenge of obligation. Courageous followers assume responsibility for themselves and the organization as a whole. They assess their own performance, elicit feedback from others, seek opportunities for personal growth, manage their tasks, and maintain a healthy personal life. At the same time, they are passionate about the work of the organization as a whole, taking initiative to challenge the status quo by modifying the culture, challenging rules and mind-sets, and improving processes.

2. The courage to serve. Courageous followers actively support their leaders, often by working behind the scenes. This service takes the following forms:

· Helping leaders conserve their energies by focusing their attention on the most important tasks

· Organizing communication flow from and to the leader

· Controlling and allowing access to the leader

· Screening out unsubstantiated criticism of the leader and defending the leader from unjust criticism

· Relaying a leader’s messages in an accurate, effective manner

· Acting on behalf of the leader when appropriate

· Shaping a leader’s public image

· Focusing the creative leader on the most fruitful ideas

· Presenting options during decision making

· Encouraging the leader to develop healthy peer relationships

· Preparing for and preventing crises

· Helping the leader and the group cope with the leader’s illness

· Mediating conflicts between leaders

· Promoting performance reviews for leaders

3. The courage to challenge. Inappropriate behavior threatens the leader–follower relationship and the entire organization. Leaders may engage in petty theft, scream at or use demeaning language with employees, display an arrogant attitude, and engage in sexual harassment. Such behavior needs to be confronted immediately, before it becomes a habit. In some instances, a gentle, indirect approach will do, as in questioning the wisdom of a policy or focusing attention on the idea or program rather than on the personal shortcomings of the leader. In more extreme cases, followers will need to directly challenge or disobey orders.

4. The courage to participate in transformation. Left unchecked, negative behavior patterns can lead to a leader’s destruction. But changing ingrained habits is a long, difficult process. Leaders often deny the need to change or justify their behavior. They may claim that anger is an effective management tool or that misleading investors boosts company profits. To modify their behavior, leaders must admit they have a problem, accept responsibility, and desire to change. They are more likely to persist in the change process if they can visualize positive outcomes, like more productive employees, better health, restored relationships, and higher self-esteem. Followers play a critical role in the transformation process by (1) drawing attention to what needs to be changed (and not reinforcing dysfunctional behavior), (2) providing honest feedback, (3) suggesting resources and outside facilitators, (4) creating a supportive climate, (5) modeling openness to change and empathy, (6) helping contain abusive behavior, and (7) providing positive reinforcement when the leader adapts effective new patterns.

5. The courage to leave. There are lots of reasons to leave an organization. A new setting may offer more opportunities for personal growth, leaving may help the group as a whole, and followers may be experiencing exhaustion and burnout. However, leaving for principled reasons takes the most courage because it may mean the loss of a job, career, or reputation. Followers should resign when they have failed to fulfill the organization’s purpose or have violated an important trust. They may also withdraw their support when those in authority continue their abuse, violate their professed values, serve their own agendas, and ask followers to engage in unethical and illegal behavior.

Chaleff is quick to point out that courageous followership involves more than challenge; it also involves support for the leader. The best followers serve as partners with leaders, providing high challenge and high support. Other types of followers fall short on one or both of these dimensions. Individualistic followers will speak up when others don’t but are seen as unsupportive and thus may be ignored. Resource followers don’t provide much support or challenge, doing just enough to get by. Implementer followers are very supportive but rarely challenge their leaders. Leaders often like followers who use this style. Nevertheless, implementers put their leaders at risk because they don’t warn them about problems.

According to Chaleff, identifying your follower style is the first step in developing your courage. 20 Determine whether you function as a partner with your leaders or as an individualist, resource, or implementer instead. Be willing to support your leader, and practice the skills you need to act courageously by role playing confrontation scenarios like the ones in Application Project 7. When preparing to challenge a leader, try to identify any misperceptions or blind spots you might have as a follower by asking yourself the following questions:

· Does what I want from the leader seem reasonable?

· Do I need to build or repair trust by giving my leader more or better support?

· Is a better strategy needed for raising the issue with the leader?

· Do I need to conduct more research or gather more documentation to present my case effectively?

· What options should I develop for the leader to consider?

· Do I need to change anything about my behavior if I want the leader to transform her or his behavior?

· Do I need to do something to reinforce changes already agreed to in earlier conversations?

· Are there any other observations or suggestions that I should keep in mind?

Authentic Followership

Proponents of authentic leadership theory (ALT) believe that authenticity is the key to ethical followership, just as it is for ethical leadership. As we saw in the last chapter , authentic leaders promote authentic followership by modeling authentic behaviors and by helping constituents develop feelings of competence, hope, and optimism. Followers can also take steps to become more authentic on their own. In particular, they need to develop psychological ownership, foster trust, and practice transparency. 21

· Psychological ownership. Authentic followers “feel as though they own their process, product and performance.” 22 This feeling of ownership is founded on a sense of belonging (“This is my place”), a sense of self-identity (“I am a ____ employee”), a sense of accountability (“I am responsible for what happens”), and a sense of efficacy (“I know I can do it.”) Ownership encourages such ethical behaviors as (1) meeting the needs of customers when they first come into contact with a company, (2) taking responsibility for making decisions at lower organizational levels, (3) going beyond what the job requires, and (4) doing whatever it takes to solve problems. Employees at one small private parking lot near the University of Virginia demonstrate positive power of ownership. Profiled in the documentary The Parking Lot Movie, these attendants take pride in what many would consider menial work. They decorate their workspace, go to great lengths to prevent customers from leaving the lot without paying, and, even years later, reflect with fondness on their days as part of this work team.

· Trust. Authentic followers own up to their shortcomings at the same time they encourage their leaders to follow their example. For example, when nurses admit making mistakes that could cost lives, this prompts doctors to report potential missteps as well. Authentic followers take the risk to share their failures with leaders. At the same time, they don’t take advantage of leaders who admit their mistakes.

· Transparency. Authentic followers say what they mean. Their willingness to honestly share their thoughts, values, and feelings builds transparent relationships that are marked by honesty, feedback, and effective communication. Authentic followers also contribute to the formation of transparent organizational climates focused on shared goals. In such climates, members can predict how others will act and are more willing to welcome creative ideas and to acknowledge potential weaknesses. Because they feel safe, employees reveal problems rather than creating the impression that everything is okay.

Authentic followership equips us to meet several of the ethical challenges of followership: obligation, cynicism, delivering bad news, expressing dissent. As we engage in authentic behavior as followers, we reinforce the authentic behaviors of our leaders. We are more likely to develop a sense of ownership if we realize that we serve a greater purpose and are accountable for actions. We should be willing to address problems whatever our role and status in the organization. At the same time, we can establish trusting relationships with our leaders by becoming vulnerable and by not taking advantage of their vulnerability. Owning up to our errors encourages our leaders and peers to do the same.

Managing Up/Leading Up

Knowing how to work effectively with leaders is key to ethical followership. Harvard business professors John Gabarro and John Kotter use the phrase managing your boss to describe “the process of consciously working with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and the company.” 23 They emphasize that it is the responsibility of followers to establish good working relationships with their leaders. Bosses depend on their subordinates. When followers misbehave, they can do serious damage to their leaders and to others in the organization.

Managing the boss begins with understanding the boss. As followers, we need to recognize the pressures our superiors face, their strengths and weaknesses, and their preferred working styles. Some leaders seek detailed background information, whereas others want only the basic facts. Some leaders are readers who like information in report form, whereas others are listeners who prefer information presented in person so that they can ask questions. High-involvement bosses want to be consulted every step of the way; low-involvement managers delegate instead.

We also need to understand our own strengths and weaknesses and preferred working styles. In particular, we need to determine if we are counterdependent or overdependent. Counterdependent followers resent the fact that they have to depend more on the boss than the boss has to depend on them. They view the leader as the enemy, rebelling and escalating conflict. Overdependent followers hold back their anger and refuse to disagree even when the manager makes a bad decision. Gabarro and Kotter point out that both of these orientations overlook the fact that leaders are imperfect and struggle with their own pressures and concerns that may put them at odds with the wishes of their subordinates. Knowing if we tend to rebel or submit can help us take steps to correct our attitudes and behaviors. We may have to make a conscious effort not to view our leaders as enemies, checking our tendency to engage in needless conflict. Or we may need to disagree with our leaders more often.

In order to develop and maintain a good relationship with your boss, you will need to learn how to blend your working styles together. You may have to shorten your reports, provide information in advance, and get your manager involved from the start of the project. Make sure you clarify what your manager expects from you and what you expect from your manager (e.g., how much data each party needs, when projects should be completed). Never overestimate what your leader already knows, and determine the best way to communicate bad news as well as good. Be dependable and consistent—don’t underplay problems or overpromise results. Make good use of your boss’s time and energy. Every request you make is a drain on your leader’s resources, so plan your withdrawals carefully.

Wharton Business School professor Michael Useem distinguishes between managing up and leading up. While managing up is working well with bosses to get daily tasks done, leading up is about exceeding expectations and bringing added value—what Useem describes as “the effective exercise of power for the greater good.” 24 Those who lead up have a bias for action. They are willing to take charge of a situation even when they aren’t the officially designated leader. Useem provides a number of examples of individuals who were significant leaders in their own right but still had to influence their superiors, often in crisis situations. Some, like the Civil War general Robert E. Lee and Charles Schwab’s president David Pottruck (who convinced the brokerage’s namesake to move to online trading), succeeded as upward leaders. Others, like the commander of the UN forces during the Rwandan genocide and former CBS CEO Thomas Wyman (who tried to sell the company without his board’s permission), did not. (See Ethics in Action 9.1 for examples of followers engaged in leading up.)

Useem draws a number of leading up lessons from these examples. Among the most important: (1) keep your superiors well informed, and don’t surprise them; (2) make a compelling case for policies and initiatives, using facts and evidence; (3) press your leader for more information if instructions are unclear; (4) step up to make a difference, even if your superiors don’t recognize the need or the opportunity; (5) communicate the interests of your superiors to your subordinates and the interests of your subordinates to your superiors in order to meet the needs of both groups.

Ethics in Action 9.1 Leading Up at Every Level of the Organization: Tempered Radicals

Harvard professor Debra Myerson demonstrates that ordinary organizational members, not just those near the top of the hierarchy, can successfully lead up. She conducted more than 200 interviews with change agents she calls tempered radicals. Tempered radicals are people who want to stay and succeed in their organizations, even if their identities and values are different from the dominant cultures of their groups. Their goal is to remain true to themselves while changing their organizations slowly over time. According to Myerson, “They want to rock the boat, and they want to stay in it” (p. xi). Examples of tempered radicals include gays who hope to make their organizations more sexually inclusive, employees of color out to foster diversity, parents who want to set aside family time while working in demanding high-tech companies, and those who promote social responsibility in profit-making corporations.

To succeed, tempered radicals use a variety of strategies, which range from resisting quietly and operating behind the scenes to enlisting others and making a public attempt to change the entire organization. One set of influence strategies—leveraging small wins—is particularly useful to those engaged in leading up. Small wins are limited, manageable projects that produce concrete, visible results. Those engaged in small wins have a plan for change and actively promote their agendas. Small wins are low risk. They demonstrate that change is possible while building hope. Over time, a series of small wins can lead to significant cultural change. One African American manager at a large financial institution, for example, worked to identify and recruit minority candidates. He asked the individuals he hired to pledge that they would also actively recruit other people of color. Over 30 years, he was directly or indirectly responsible for hiring more than 3,500 minority employees.

Being a tempered radical is far from easy. These individuals always feel somewhat out of sync with the dominant culture and run the risk of giving up their values. At the same time, outsiders may accuse them of selling out. To keep going, tempered radicals (1) know who they are and what is most important to their sense of self, remaining true to their core values while being flexible about how to fulfill them; (2) favor taking action; (3) recognize that they have a choice in how they respond; (4) see choices in mundane organizational activities and interactions; (5) act on opportunities that present themselves; (6) connect small wins and events to generate greater change and encourage others to learn from their victories; and (7) remain tied to others, drawing upon their support to maintain their identities and to collectively work for change.

Not all tempered radicals are successful, of course. Nevertheless, they deserve our respect for trying to make a difference every day, whatever their organizational status or position.

SOURCE: Myerson (2001).

Whistle-Blowing

Whistle-blowers are organizational members who decide to remain in the organization but take their concerns about abuses (e.g., bid rigging, bribery, unsafe products, substandard working conditions) to outsiders in the hope of correcting the problem. 25 They often begin by expressing their dissent through organizational channels but end up making problems public when their concerns are ignored. Stories of whistle-blowers have grabbed the headlines in recent years. U.S. Army private Bradley Manning supplied classified material on the war on Afghanistan to the WikiLeaks website. Civilian defense analyst Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) is secretly monitoring the phone calls and e-mail messages of citizens in the United States and other countries. (Read Case Study 9.3 for a closer look at the ethical issues surrounding Snowden’s revelations.)

Whistle-blowers pay a steep price for speaking up. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in military prison and Snowden fled to Russia to avoid arrest. In 2002/2003 three whistle-blowers—FBI agent Colleen Rowley, WorldCom auditor Cynthia Cooper, and Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins—were treated as heroes in the press. However, fellow officers criticized Agent Rowley for being disloyal and threatened her with criminal charges for publicizing the FBI’s failure to monitor some of the 9/11 hijackers. Cooper was screamed at and shunned by some of her fellow employees. Not one senior WorldCom executive has ever thanked her or her internal audit team that brought the company’s accounting scandal to light. Watkins was demoted and given little to do after warning Enron CEO Kenneth Lay about the company’s shaky finances. 26

After conducting a national survey of past whistle-blowers, Terrence Miethe concludes, “Most whistleblowers discover that exposing organizational misconduct is a low-reward and high-risk activity.” 27 Dissenters can expect to be attacked instead of supported, despite federal and state laws designed to protect those who come forward and support groups for those who do. They will likely be abandoned by coworkers, criticized or humiliated by superiors, denied promotions, relegated to meaningless positions, cut off from neighbors, and on and on. As a consequence, of employees who witness unethical conduct, only half (52%) report the misconduct to the proper authorities. 28

The experience of Mike Quint illustrates the negative consequences of whistle-blowing. Quint was an engineer assigned to inspect construction of the Los Angeles Metro Rail Project between 1987 and 1991. 29 Quint noted a number of problems on the project that could pose safety hazards to riders, including missing reinforcement bars, poor inspection procedures, and violations of structural codes. After his concerns were ignored, Quint notified a variety of government officials and the local press. Later the Army Corps of Engineers confirmed his allegations, and the problems were corrected. Nonetheless, Quint was transferred and terminated, blacklisted from getting another inspection job. He reports feeling depressed, isolated, and distrustful and in poorer physical health.

In light of the risks, blowing the whistle on organizational wrongdoing takes a great deal of courage. Yet courage by itself is not enough. Whistle-blowers must also engage in careful ethical reasoning. They have to determine where their ultimate loyalty should rest and whether the disruption they will cause is justified. When the whistle blows, everyone in the organization suffers. Workers lose their jobs, the credibility of the organization is damaged, stock prices decline, and so forth.

Ethicist Sissela Bok divides the act of whistle-blowing into three parts to help ethical decision makers weigh the moral implications of exposing misbehavior to outsiders. 30 Each element of the process raises ethical questions, which are summarized by R. A. Johnson in Ethics in Action 9.2 . Dissent addresses the relative benefits of going public. Most whistle-blowers believe that their actions will benefit society as a whole. Before going forward, they need to determine if this is indeed the case. Whistle-blowers break their loyalty to fellow members and to the group as a whole. Therefore, whistle-blowing should only be used as a last resort, when time is limited and internal channels aren’t an option. Whistle-blowers bring serious charges against individuals in public. Accusation highlights the fact that dissenters are ethically obligated to consider such issues as fairness, the public’s right to know, anonymity, and their personal motives.

As managers, we can take steps to encourage employees to blow the whistle internally so corrective actions can be taken without incurring the costs of going public. 31 Create tough antiretaliation policies, and disseminate those policies throughout the organization. Identify types of unethical behavior, and spell out what employees should do if they observe such actions. When an employee makes a complaint, concentrate on the wrongdoing and not on the whistle-blower. Thoroughly investigate all reports, and take quick action when justified. Publicize corrective actions, and monitor to make sure retaliation doesn’t occur.

Ethics in Action 9.2 The Whistle-Blower Checklist

Dissent: When whistle-blowers claim their dissent will achieve a public good, they must ask:

· ✓ What is the nature of the promised benefit?

· ✓ How accurate are the facts?

· ✓ How serious is the impropriety?

· ✓ How imminent is the threat?

· ✓ How closely linked to the wrongdoing are those accused?

Loyalty: When whistle-blowers breach loyalty to their organization, they must ask:

· ✓ Is whistle-blowing the last and only alternative?

· ✓ Is there no time to use routine channels?

· ✓ Are internal channels corrupted?

· ✓ Are there no internal channels?

Accusation: When whistle-blowers are publicly accusing others, they must ask:

· ✓ Are the accusations fair?

· ✓ Does the public have a right to know?

· ✓ Is the whistle-blower not anonymous?

· ✓ Are the motives not self-serving?

Chapter Takeaways

· The power and influence of followers is growing, making ethical followership more important than ever before.

· The moral demands you’ll face as a follower are the challenge of obligation, the challenge of obedience, the challenge of cynicism, the challenge of dissent, and the challenge of delivering bad news.

· Beware of fear, anxiety, the need to belong, and other forces that can make you dependent on toxic leaders. Learn to live with anxiety, and don’t be afraid to act independently. Demand leaders who tell the truth; avoid those with grandiose visions. Don’t let a few selfish individuals select themselves as leaders, but draft a large number of organizational members to take on leadership responsibilities. Screen out susceptible followers who are tempted to conform to or collude with destructive leaders.

· In order to act as an exemplary follower, you’ll need to practice service to your leaders and organizations by exercising independent, critical thought and by becoming actively engaged in organizational affairs. You can become an exemplary follower by leading yourself, committing yourself to ideas and causes, developing your competence and credibility, using your courageous conscience, and learning to disagree agreeably.

· Good followers are engaged with their leaders and serve the public good, not selfish interests. Don’t wait to resist bad leadership, but respond as soon as possible, joining forces with other followers if you can.

· You will need to demonstrate courage if you are to fulfill your ethical duties as a follower. Dimensions of courage include the courage to assume responsibility, the courage to serve, the courage to challenge, the courage to participate in transformation, and the courage to leave. Develop your courage by seeking to serve as a partner with your leader, practicing the skills you need to act courageously and identifying possible misperceptions or blind spots you have as a follower.

· Become an authentic follower by developing psychological ownership, fostering trusting relationships with leaders, and practicing transparency—being honest and willing to admit problems.

· Managing up is taking the ethical responsibility for establishing a good working relationship with your supervisor and learning how to work together effectively.

· Leading up is taking initiative to improve the organization and the group without being given formal authority. To effectively lead up, keep superiors informed, and build support for your policies and initiatives by using facts and evidence. You may need to step up even when your superiors don’t recognize the need or the opportunity.

· Whistle-blowing is bringing wrongdoing to the attention of outsiders. Not only will you need courage to be a whistle-blower, but you’ll also have to engage in careful moral reasoning, weighing the relative benefits of going public, breaking loyalties, and publicly accusing others. Take steps to encourage others to blow the whistle by setting tough antiretaliation policies and by taking quick corrective action when complaints surface.

Application Projects

1. In a group, identify additional ethical demands on followers that you would add to those in the chapter.

2. Create a case study that illustrates how a follower responded to one of the ethical challenges.

3. Which ethical challenge of followership is the most difficult to resolve? Write up your conclusions.

4. Develop a definition of toxic followership. Explain how toxic followership and toxic leadership are related.

5. Determine your follower style using the questionnaire in Self-Assessment 9.2 . Explain what your scores mean to you. Describe how you might become a more exemplary follower based on the five behavior patterns described in the chapter. As an alternative, identify the strategies you use to express dissent to your leaders using Self-Assessment 9.1 . How effective have these tactics been? How might you become more effective at offering dissent?

6. Have you had to display any of the dimensions of courageous followership? Share your story in a small group.

7. Role play these confrontation scenarios:

8. You are the vice president for product development at a large manufacturing firm. Your division is ready to begin work on a major new product line. Due to the investment required to develop the new products, the board of directors has to give its approval. Your boss, the company CEO, has enthusiastically supported the project. That’s why his behavior at last night’s board meeting was so disappointing. When several board members began to express opposition to your plans after your presentation, the CEO agreed with them and stated that the new product line was “not well thought out.” You are scheduled to meet with the CEO this morning to debrief the board session.

You are the director of an MBA program at a private university. On more than one occasion, the president of your school has exaggerated the number of students in your program when making presentations to donors. He continues to overstate enrollments, even though you have provided him with the correct figures. You have an appointment with him to discuss other items but want to address this issue as well.

You are a junior accountant at a small accounting firm. You notice that your supervisor, who generates the most income for your business, appears to be advising clients to claim unauthorized deductions on their tax forms. She denies that she is doing anything illegal and claims that she is trying to save money for her hard-working clients. You, however, are unconvinced by her arguments and set up a meeting to confront her about the deductions.

9. Do you feel like an owner of your organization? Why or why not? What can you do as a follower to increase the sense that you have an ownership stake in your company, nonprofit, or government agency? What can your leaders do to foster your feeling of ownership?

10. Develop a strategy for managing up and/or leading up with one of your supervisors.

11. Analyze the actions of a whistle-blower using Bok’s checklist. Was this person justified in coming forward?

Case Study 9.2

GM’s Deadly Ignition Switch

There is an unwritten “safety contract” between car buyers and automobile manufacturers. In return for purchasing their cars, drivers assume that auto manufacturers will do everything they can to ensure that the cars they make are safe. General Motors, one of the “Big Three” domestic automakers, broke this safety contract. In 2001 GM first learned of problems with the ignition switch on its Chevy Cobalt, Saturn Ion, and other small cars. The switch would turn to the accessory position or to the off position if accidently jostled or if pulled down by the weight of a key chain. When this happened, the engine, power steering, and power brakes would shut down. The airbags were also disabled. At least 13 deaths are attributed to crashes involving the faulty switch.

In 2002, Delphi, the switch manufacturer, told GM officials that the part did not meet specifications. In 2006 two engineers ordered a replacement for the original switch. However, they didn’t change the part number, which disguised the defect. (The cost of the replacement part was less than $1.00.) In May 2009 a group of company engineers met and concluded, based on data taken from wrecked vehicles, that the switch was at fault. But GM did not issue a recall, choosing instead to issue service bulletins. These bulletins go directly to dealers and are much less expensive than recalls. However, they are not designed to address serious safety problems. During the same period company representatives told customers that there wasn’t enough evidence to establish that the switch was defective. GM lawyers threatened some victims’ families who wanted to bring lawsuits. They reached settlements with other families that forced claimants to keep quiet about the switch problem.

It wasn’t until December 2013 that a management committee decided to issue a recall for the potentially fatal switch. The recall wasn’t announced until eight weeks later, after Mary Barra became CEO. Initially 778,000 vehicles were recalled. Eleven days later the recall was expanded to nearly twice the number of vehicles. Even then, some customers had to wait for replacement parts to be shipped to dealers. Victims’ families and safety advocates urged Barra and GM to tell Cobalt and Saturn owners to park their vehicles until the parts arrived. Barra refused this request, saying that the switch was safe as long as drivers only had one key on their key ring; the company’s legal team successfully fought off attempts in court to make it issue such a directive.

Initially Barra and her legal team argued GM shouldn’t have to pay for any damages for deaths and injuries that occurred before 2009. That year the company filed for bankruptcy and was bailed out by taxpayers. GM lawyers claimed that bankruptcy laws protected the firm from claims filed before it reorganized under federal protection. Barra did hint, however, that GM might change its position based on the results of the company’s internal investigation of the cover up. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fined GM a record $35 million for failing to promptly notify the agency of problems with the switch.

Hundreds if not thousands of employees share the blame for GM’s failure to recall the faulty switch for over a decade. Staff in several different departments knew about the defective switch but they failed to share information across organizational “silos.” Company lawyers received word of lawsuits, accident reports, and insurance data, but customer complaints and warranty claims went to the sales and service division. Each of these divisions reports to a different executive and these executives may not have communicated about the Cobalt model. In one case, GM officials did not know about a fatal 2005 Cobalt crash even though the legal department had a two-year-old open case file on the wreck. Engineers opened and closed four different Cobalt investigations between 2004 and 2009 without widely disclosing the results. There is no indication that the group of engineers who determined that the switch was defective ever spoke to their supervisors or to company executives. In addition, the two engineers who switched the part without changing the part number made it harder for company safety officials and federal investigators to identify the problem. Company attorneys (who likely had suspicions about the switch) stonewalled victims’ families. Customer service representatives and communication staff may have unwittingly done their part to carry out the cover up by denying problems and drafting safety bulletins instead of issuing recalls.

In appearances before members of Congress, CEO Barra promised to create a “new GM” that is more transparent and focused on safety. However, unless employees buy in to her efforts, what one senator called GM’s “culture of cover up” is likely to remain in place.

Discussion Probes

1. GM refused to urge owners to park their vehicles until they could be repaired. Do you agree with the company’s position? Why or why not?

2. Should GM pay for damages caused by the faulty switch prior to 2009 even if it isn’t legally required to do so? Why or why not?

3. How can General Motors and other large bureaucratic organizations break down organizational silos that keep information from being shared between divisions and departments?

4. What can organizations do to help followers speak up when they identify problems?

5. Should company employees face criminal prosecution for their role in the cover up?

6. Are you less likely to buy a General Motors product because of this safety scandal? Why or why not?

SOURCES: Dickerson (2014). Healy (2014). Krisher (2014). Lauener (2014). Liberto (2014). Priddle and Bomey (2014). Stout, Vlasic, Ivory, and Ruiz (2014). Vlasic (2014). Vlasic and Stout (2014). Vlasic and Wald (2014). Wald (2014).

Case Study 9.3

Blowing the Whistle on the Nsa

Civilian defense contractor Edward Snowden sparked an international firestorm when he released hundreds of thousands of top-secret documents from the National Security Administration. The documents reveal that the United States’ largest spy agency has become what one journalist calls “an electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities” which spies on friends and foes alike. 1 The NSA

· —possesses the capability to record and store every phone conversation in a foreign country

· —monitors the phone calls of U.S. citizens calling overseas

· —eavesdrops on allies such as Germany and France to gain “diplomatic advantage” and to gain “economic advantage” over allies like Japan and Brazil

· —shares data on United States citizens with foreign governments

· —routinely hacks into computers in foreign countries or follows hackers who break into computers

· —taps into e-mail traffic passing through the United States from foreign countries

· —stores e-mails, text messages, and credit card purchase information from around the world

· —inserts electronic “bugs” on smart phones and tracks targets through cell phone tower locations

· —plants spyware on computers that enables the agency to watch individuals as they type and receive correspondence

· —requires electronics firms like AT&T, Google, and Yahoo to provide access to private e-mail messages

· —infiltrates the World of Warcraft and Second Life online games to recruit informants, spot possible terrorists who may be using the games to communicate, and gather information about players

· —operates with few restraints, supervised by secret intelligence courts and lax congressional oversight committees

The 30-year-old Snowden worked for the CIA before going to work for Booz Allen Hamilton as a computer analyst assigned to the NSA. He copied an estimated 1.7 million documents to a disk because he fears the NSA’s surveillance programs are a threat to democracy. Snowden claims that he approached several supervisors with his concerns but was ignored (a claim denied by national security advisor Susan Rice). He decided to meet with reporters from the Guardian and the Washington Post newspapers in Hong Kong after he heard NSA director James Clapper deny, before Congress, that the agency was spying on U.S. citizens. After acknowledging that he was the source of the leaks, Snowden tried to seek asylum in Venezuela. However, the United States government revoked his passport and he was forced to seek refuge in Russia on route to South America. He faces charges in the United States under the Espionage Act for unlawful communication of defense and classified information.

Snowden acknowledges that he has paid a high price for his decision to come forward and hopes he can one day be reunited with friends and family. Nonetheless, he is convinced he did the right thing: “The reality is, the situation determined that this needed to be told to the public. The Constitution of the United States had been violated on a massive scale. Now, had that not happened, had the government not gone too far and overreached, we wouldn’t be in a situation where whistleblowers were necessary.” 2

Snowden’s revelations had an immediate impact. U.S. allies were furious at news that the NSA routinely spies on their activities and gathers data about their citizens. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, and Yahoo worked to develop encryption that would prevent NSA spying and to reassure foreign governments that information that passes through the U.S. will be protected. (In India, government officials can no longer use e-mail services with U.S. servers and Brazil may redesign its system to keep government data in the country.) President Obama proposed restrictions on the number of people who can have their phone calls examined. The House of Representatives passed a bill tightening restrictions on intelligence gathering. Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul called for even stricter regulation of the NSA.

The fugitive told NBC News anchor Brian Williams that he considers himself a patriot. A number of privacy advocates and news organizations agree with his self-assessment. Snowden (as well as a documentary filmmaker who assisted him), received the Ridenhour truth-telling award, named after the reporter who revealed the My Lai massacre. The Guardian and the Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for publishing the documents. Snowden has also been nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Many government officials consider Snowden to be a traitor, not a patriot. According to Secretary of State John Kerry, “This is a man who has done great damage to his country.” He urged Snowden to “man up” and return to the United States. “A patriot would not run away,” Kerry claimed. 3 Some in Congress accuse him of working with the Russians. National Security Agency director James Clapper called Snowden a hypocrite who has undermined U.S. security, prompted terrorist groups to change their communication channels, and endangered the lives of U.S. intelligence personnel. He said the journalists who published the information were Snowden’s “accomplices” who should return the stolen materials. NSA defenders assert that the agency’s surveillance programs have prevented terrorist attacks like the one on the Twin Towers. They also claim that the NSA’s data gathering capabilities enabled the agency to respond within minutes, not hours, to the Boston Marathon bombing.

Discussion Probes

1. Are you concerned that the NSA might be gathering information about your electronic activity?

2. Is it ethical for friendly governments to spy on one another?

3. Do the security benefits of the NSA surveillance programs outweigh their costs to personal privacy?

4. Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor? Why?

5. Based on the standards described in the chapter, was Snowden justified in blowing the whistle on the National Security Agency?

Notes

1. Shane (2013).

2. Edward Snowden tells NBC: I’m a patriot (2014).

3. John Kerry to Edward Snowden: ‘man up, come back to U.S.’ (2014). Additional sources for this section are Abbruzzese (2014); Baker and Savage (2014); Chappell (2014); Finn and Horwitz (2013); Gellman, Blake, and Miller (2013); Gellman and Soltani (2014); Hicks (2013); Mazzetti and Elliott (2013); G. Miller (January 30, 2014; February 16, 2014); Perlroth and Goel (2013); Snowden, Poitras honored with Ridenhour truth-telling award