General MacArthur once said, “A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.” Sure, but there are thousands of books on leadership, very few on followership. Business magazines focus relentlessly on the attributes of successful leadership. The ideal seems to be a world in which everyone is a leader yet who would be left for them to be leading? However, there are exceptions to this ‘rule’. The following books were instrumental in shaping my understanding of the ‘leadership-followership’ dynamic.

In 1992, Robert Kelley wrote ‘The Power of Followership’. He ended up with five followership styles: [1] alienated followers (think critically and independently but do not willingly participate in the groups of which they are members); [2] passive followers (do not think critically and do not actively participate; they let their leaders do their thinking for them); [3] conformist followers (do participate in their groups and organizations but are content simply to take orders); [4] exemplary followers (are nearly perfect, they perform well across the board); [5] pragmatic followers (play both sides of the fence, ranking in the middle in terms of independent thinking and level of activity).

In 1995, Ira Chalef wrote ‘The Courageous Follower’. He classified followers according to the degree to which they supported leaders and the degree to which they challenged them. In 2008, Barbara Kellerman published ‘Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders’. She categorizes followers as [1] isolates (they do not care about their organizations, passively support the status quo, and impede improvement and slow change); [2] bystanders (observe but do not really participate, they consciously choose to fly under the radar); [3] participants (care enough to invest time or money, they try to make an impact); [4] activists (feel strongly one way or another about their leaders and organizations, and they act accordingly; they are eager, engaged, and energetic), and [5] diehards (they — deeply devoted to their leaders — are prepared to go down for their cause; they may also be strongly motivated to oust their leaders by any means necessary). Kellerman categorizes followers according to where they fall along a continuum that ranges from ‘feeling and doing absolutely nothing’ to ‘being passionately committed and deeply involved’.

Understanding the characteristics and nature of followers is crucial, and given their greater number, no easy task. Early in my career at McKinsey, many decades ago, I learned a valuable lesson from the senior partners. They not only recognized the importance of their followers but also actively developed their leadership skills by working with a diverse range of juniors with cutting-edge ideas. Outstanding followers are key. Nothing beats a smooth-running ‘leadership-followership’ engine.