Interactions between leaders and followers stand as vital components driving organizational success. These interactions thrive on positive engagement, trust, motivation, and cooperation. Leadership encompasses a dynamic exchange where some individuals lead while others follow, all working towards positive organizational outcomes. Failures in achieving these goals often point towards deficiencies or ineffectiveness in leadership. The effectiveness of leadership lies in the leader’s adeptness in applying various styles to influence employees or followers towards specific objectives.
Leaders are central thinkers and agents of change within an organization. In contemporary settings, leaders heavily rely on followers for crucial insights in resolving complex issues, fostering innovation, resilience, and learning within the organization. Followers, through critical thinking, contribute significantly to the leadership process by questioning the status quo and driving change. Analytical, curious, self-confident, and critical-thinking followers actively engage in problem-solving rather than avoiding challenges.
Blanchard & Hersey’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) emphasizes adaptability and style in gauging leadership effectiveness. Leaders adjust their styles to meet followers’ needs based on the prevailing circumstances, with followers influencing the choice of approach. For instance, during times of reduced revenue, leaders may employ coaching, close supervision, or delegation to enhance employee commitment and operational efficiency.
Zaleznik’s subordinacy typology delineates four behavioural patterns—impulsive, compulsive, withdrawn, and masochistic—that followers exhibit, potentially influencing their leaders. These patterns may necessitate closer supervision and could prompt leaders to adopt authoritative leadership styles.
Followers serve as crucial supporters of leaders’ decisions aimed at organizational success. However, they may also resist decisions they disagree with, posing challenges to leadership effectiveness. Different follower traits can either hinder or bolster a leader’s decisions, with supportive followers aligning activities for the organization’s benefit and unsupportive ones exerting minimal effort. Identifying and considering the perspectives of unsupportive followers can lead to more informed and practical decision-making.
How followers can effectively communicate and collaborate with a leader whose style is not consistent with what they desire or with a leader they do not admire
Effectively communicating with a leader whose style is inconsistent and undesired can be achieved through various means. One approach is self-regulation, where followers maintain awareness of their own emotions while understanding the perspective of the leader. By exercising greater control over their behavior and reactions, followers can articulate their concerns without causing chaos.
Another method is embracing reciprocal interdependence in follower-leader interactions. This involves building trust, mutual obligation, and respect between followers and leaders, fostering an environment conducive to open communication. Through reciprocal interdependence, followers feel empowered to share their grievances with leaders.
Creating a follower’s voice is also instrumental in effective communication with leaders. This entails establishing channels through which followers can voluntarily express their concerns, ideas, and suggestions. This may involve appointing a team leader to convey messages from followers to top management, facilitating a direct line of communication.
Strategies for how leaders can better empower and support followers in meeting their goals
Delegation stands out as a potent method for bolstering and empowering followers. It entails entrusting responsibility to a follower and granting them the freedom to execute a specific task. By delegating, employees engage closely with their leaders and peers, fostering a cohesive team dynamic. Crucially, delegation cultivates trust within leader-follower relationships. As Ugoani (2020) suggests, it also expands employees’ knowledge and skills, ultimately fostering a sense of fulfillment. Effective task delegation leverages employees’ strengths and expertise. Beyond this, delegating tasks to employees yields additional advantages such as reinforcing team accountability, fortifying leader-employee bonds, and enhancing overall productivity.
Another avenue for leaders to empower and support their followers is through coaching. Coaching involves unlocking an employee’s potential in specific tasks by imparting new experiences, knowledge, and skills. The leader’s duty is to foster the right mindsets, beliefs, and approaches while elevating their awareness levels. Coaching is a pivotal process that prioritizes employee development to align with organizational objectives. Organizational settings commonly employ two types of coaching: one-to-one coaching, which targets individual performance improvement, and group coaching, aimed at addressing skill deficiencies in individuals. Typically, coaching proves effective in promoting professional growth.
Providing essential resources also plays a crucial role in supporting and empowering employees. Leaders must ensure that employees have the necessary resources to accomplish their tasks, as insufficient resources can hamper performance. Resources encompass anything that aids in goal attainment. Organizations endowed with adequate resources enjoy a competitive edge over those lacking them. Employees feel empowered when leaders furnish the requisite resources for task completion. Adequate resource provision enhances organizational commitment, job satisfaction, productivity, and performance, while simultaneously reducing turnover rates.
Read More Articles
- All Posts
- Blog
- Posts
In today’s world of business, social media has become really important for marketing. Many companies use social media to connect…
In the forthcoming years and decades, global challenges ranging from diseases, financial crises, technological disruptions, and climate change will occur…
Numerous students inquire about the purpose of an appendix in writing. Essentially, an appendix serves as a collection of referenced…
Click here to read more blogs
