Dixon and Westbrook, Followers Revealed

Dixon, Gene and Jerry Westbrook. “Followers Revealed.” Engineering Management Journal 15.1 (March 2003): 19-25.

The authors argue that employees at higher levels of organizational management (executives) have stronger followership characteristics than employees at the mid-manager level and operational level. Their argument is based on their survey of nearly 300 employees from all organizational levels who work at 17 different engineering and technology firms. Dixon and Westbrook used Chaleff’s theory of courageous followership (1995) and his five followership attributes to frame and design their study. They argue that their finding shows that the most successful leaders know how to be good followers, and they introduce the idea of the leader-follower concept – that employees are neither just leaders nor followers but can switch between the roles as appropriate.

Notable Notes

Always more followers than leaders – always more to the conversation than your own argument

Followers work with leaders to produce knowledge and find meaning

Argues that managers need to cultivate followership attributes in their organizations, give strategies for doing so

References a change in 21^st work – less employee/employer attachment, desire of managers to reduce overhead. Employees are different and are motivated differently in today’s global workplace.

Chaleff’s five behaviors of courageous followership: courage to assume responsibility, to serve, to challenge, to participate in transformation, and to leave/take moral action. These behaviors drive action in a successful organization.

Quotable Quotes

“But preoccupation with leadership hinders considering the nature and importance of the follower and the interrelationship and interdependence required between leaders and followers” (20).

“Being a follower is a condition, not a position” (20).