Ref instructions

Self-Assessment 7.2: Followership Role Orientation Scale

Instructions In the questions below, think about your beliefs about followers’ roles in relation to leaders in an organizational setting. “Follower” refers to an employee who is working with leaders to achieve outcomes. In answering the following questions, please think generally about followers and their interactions with leaders or “higher-ups” in organizations. Please indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statements.

My score: 25

Scoring: Add up your score (range 5–30). The higher your score, the more you believe that followers should act as partners with their leaders.



Here is the information for page 213 of the Johnson (2019)

Toxic followership makes toxic leadership possible. Meeting the ethical challenges of followership, then, begins with avoiding these motivational traps. Professor Lipman-Blumen argues that there are a number of factors that “seduce” us into toxic followership:

· 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 8). 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.

Johnson, Craig E.. Organizational Ethics (p. 213). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.