A Decade of Dancing Around Followership: Tenets Forged From a Peer-Mentoring Network

• In Event: Pursuing Equitable Educational Systems: Experiences and Insights of Women Navigating

Abstract

Purpose
Increasingly, leadership scholars have researched followership (Alegbeleye & Kaufmann, 2019; Baker, 2007; Crossman & Crossman, 2011; Kelley, 2008; Uhl-Bien et al., 2018); however, there is a dearth of research on followership as an active, relational process (Davis, J., 2017), especially within self-organizing teams (Bastardoz & Van Vugt, 2019) like peer mentoring networks. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to articulate our understanding of followership behaviors based on our decade-long experiences within an informal peer-mentoring network.
Theoretical Framework
Constructs of followership include: follower characteristics, follower behaviors, and follower outcomes (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014, p. 96). Followership research has explored: (i) followers and leaders as roles; (ii) followers as active rather than passive; (iii) followers and leaders share a common purpose; (iv) relations between followers and leaders (Baker, 2007, p. 56). In the relational view, followership is a dynamic process where agentic followers engage in active followership (Aboiron, 2019; Alegbeleye & Kaufmann, 2019; Baker, 2007). In distributed leadership, (Chatwani, 2018; Hurwitz, 2018; Laszlo, 2018), decision-making and control patterns are decentralized, and individuals may “create frameworks within which their teammates work” (Hurwitz, 2018, p. 4). Shared leadership (Clark & Buljac-Samardžić, 2018) relies on proactive followers whose actions influence the team’s direction. Servant leaders (Davis, C.J., 2017; Davis, N, 2017; Greenleaf, 2002) and transformative leaders are concerned with the performance and potential of followers (Authors, 2008; 2010; Northouse, 2016).
Methodology
Collaborative ethnography (Lassiter, 2005) enabled research and writing; observation of social interaction in time and space; and explanation of the complex processes that connected us (Rappaport, 2008). We analyzed our lived experiences as we examined the extent to which the dynamic, active, participative, and effective followership in our network aligned with the followership literature.
Data Sources
Self-reflections along with recorded and transcribed collaborative discussions about our individual experiences of followership provided data. We also reviewed secondary data from published work by network members. Finally, we used narrative data from previous surveys of the group.
Substantiated Conclusions
As members of our peer-mentoring network, we abided by the group’s goals of scholarship, mentoring, and professional success. In our non-hierarchical, collaborative, agile, flexible, diverse peer-mentoring space, leadership is distributed, and our experience of followership is fluid. We move beyond the traditional binaries of leader and follower; we felt terms like initiator and contributor better capture our fluidity and turn-taking.
Six followership behaviors (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014) emerged from our analysis:
Responsibility to meet the goals of the group.
Voluntary membership and work-group association.
Reciprocity, synergy, and turn-taking.
Diverse thinking.
Learner agility and continuous learning.
Agency to mentor and support.
We realized that in our flourishing, long-lasting peer mentoring group, all members had demonstrated these followership behaviors over time.
Scholarly Significance
We unpacked the concept of followership as it related to our group. We were able to push past the negative connotations associated with followership, and examine the relational aspects of followership. We came to understand as followers we were in service to one another (Davis, N., 2017, p. 211), and that contributed to our personal and professional success.

Authors

• Joyanne Beverly De Four-Babb, University of Belize

• Ann Unterreiner, Arizona State University

• Anne L. Kern, University of Idaho

• Nilsa J. Thorsos, National University

• Ke Wu, University of Montana