Followership can be divided into two broad categories: role-based and relational-based. The role-based perspective focuses on followers in regard to the typical roles or behaviors they exhibit while occupying a formal or informal position within a hierarchical system. For example, in a staff planning meeting, some people are very helpful to the group because they bring energy and offer insightful suggestions regarding how the group might proceed. Their role as engaged followers, in this case, has a positive impact on the meeting and its outcomes. Emphasis in the role-based approach is on the roles and styles of followers and how their behaviors affect the leader and organizational outcomes.

The relational-based approach to followership is quite different from the role-based approach. To understand the relational-based approach it is helpful to understand social constructivism. Social constructivism is a sociological theory that argues that people create meaning about their reality as they interact with each other.

The meaning of followership emerges from the communication between leaders and followers and stresses the interplay between following and leading. Rather than focusing on roles, it focuses on the interpersonal process and one person’s attempt to influence and the other person’s response to these influence attempts. Leadership occurs within the interpersonal context of people exerting influence and responding to those influence attempts.

свернуть