The case for transcendent followership

Abstract

Based on the model of transcendent leadership, we suggest that subordinates need to display competences that mirror those of their leaders and propose transcendent followership as a framework for the responsibilities of followers in contemporary organizational environments. A transcendent follower is someone who expresses competence in terms of their management of relations with self, others and organization. Competence in the domain of self refers to being self-aware and proactive in developing individual strengths. Competence in the domain of others refers to the processes of interpersonal impact, in relation to leaders and peers. Competence in the domain of organization refers to collective maintenance and change. The article offers an integrated view of the roles and responsibilities of followers in dynamic organizational environments, presenting them as fellows rather than subordinates.

Keywords

Leadership followership fellowship transcendent followers

Introduction

Accounts of organizations in terms of leadership tend to be couched in terms of the qualities of the leader defining an era, such as the Harvard Business Review (2012) list of great American leaders of the 20th century: the leader is the dominant term, reflecting a historical view strikingly similar to a view of general history as a succession of rulers and governments. In such a view great men (and it is usually men) are taken to characterize a whole era and its significant events. Defining an organizational era in terms of great leaders is but one sign of what has been termed ‘the romance of leadership’ (Meindl et al., 1985). In management and organization theory further indicators of the romance of leadership are the excessive attention paid to the characteristics, traits and styles of leaders, as well as the conspicuous absence of attention to followers (Burns, 1978; Northouse, 2004; Yukl and Van Fleet, 1992). The follower is taken to be a tabula rasa to be imprinted by the leader and as such, largely irrelevant (as pointed out by Avolio et al., 2009: 434; see also Shamir, 1997).

By contrast, in line with a number of previous works (e.g. Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995; Kupers and Weibler, 2008; Lichtenstein and Plowman, 2009; Shamir, 2007), we regard leadership as a relational process, co-produced by leaders and followers engaged in a relation of ‘mutuality’ (Vlachoutsicos, 2011: 124). By ‘follower’ we refer here to those who, in terms of relative position in the hierarchy, occupy positions of lesser responsibility. A middle manager is a follower when interacting with the CEO but a leader when interacting with someone from outside the managerial ranks. Leadership and followership are thus relational categories rather than absolutes and express their characteristics in relation. Followership should thus be positioned in the relationship stream of leadership theories (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995: 54). We contribute to the study of the process of leadership involving leaders and followers in context, by focusing on the understudied role of followers, especially on the importance of followers’ competences at multiple levels.

We explore the relevance of the concept of transcendent followership, which is derived from the notion of transcendent leadership, advanced by Crossan, Vera and Nanjad (2008). We directly transpose the model advanced by Crossan and her colleagues to the case of followership. Our intention is clear: to suggest that, in dynamic environments, the roles and responsibilities of followers become progressively akin to those of leaders and have an importance that transcends dyadic relationships with leaders (Makela, 2009). As a result, much of what Crossan et al. argue about leaders can actually be sustained for the case of followers. To test this possibility, we build on Crossan et al.’s ideas and raise eight propositions concerning transcendent followership.

We begin this article by considering the new roles of followers in dynamic, fast-changing organizational environments. We join the ongoing debate about the reconsideration of the role of followership in the process of leadership (Baker, 2007) and share with some previous work the assumption that leader and follower should be considered in mutual relation (e.g. Collinson, 2006). Following the three-level structure proposed by Crossan et al., we first examine followership competence at the level of the self, focusing on the roles of followers as independent agents. We then address the importance of followership competence at the level of others and organization. To conclude, we discuss implications for research and management.

Followership as part of the process usually known as leadership

The leadership literature has produced ‘an enormous literature on how to be a good leader. But there is only a meager literature – a very meager literature – on how to be a good follower’ (Kellerman, 2008: 72). Leadership theories include reference to the importance of those led and the context in which the process takes place. Theories developed in the 1960s and 1970s, such as contingency theory (Fiedler, 1967) and leader–member exchange (LMX) theory (Dansereau et al., 1975; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995), introduced examinations of the role of followers in the leadership process. But, even in these cases, followers were seen as being fundamentally important only to the extent that positioning them thus explained the action and impact of leaders (Shamir, 2007).

Organizational members in followership positions may actually display proactive behaviours that do not conform to conventionally docile notions of followership. Followers can self-regulate (Lord et al., 2010), be proactive (Li et al., 2010), and consistently express personal initiative (Carsten et al., 2010; Frese and Fay, 2001). In doing so, they act as organizational citizens (Organ, 1997), able to exercise upward influence (Farmer et al., 1997; Mowday, 1978) and play an active role in initiating organizational change (Morrison and Phelps, 1999), a task normally associated with leadership. In summary, followers may engage in workplace initiatives that are influential and produce change (Campbell, 2000). There is evidently more to the followership part of leadership processes than is usually acknowledged by traditional, leader-centric theories of leadership. For example, formal leaders who see their roles as facilitators of change rather than as guardians of the hierarchy can create followers that play leadership roles (e.g. Lichtenstein and Plowman, 2009).

Followership is a dynamic complex process that takes many shapes, with participants, roles, and influences changing over time (Denis et al., 2001, 2010). Three key points of difference emerge when we consider leader/follower relations as a dynamic process: (a) leaders and followers may substitute, neutralize, or complement each other; (b) leadership/followership may be a collective endeavour rather than something dominated by formally designated leaders; and (c) followers can act in different ways and display diverse forms of influence. We focus especially on this latter dimension: the way followers enact their role, the impact of their choices in the process of leadership and their influence in the power circuitry that defines organizations in general and the leadership process in particular.

Transcendent followers

Defining terms, Kellerman (2008) wrote that followers are people who have less power, authority, and influence than do their superiors and who therefore, usually, but not invariably, ‘fall into line’. Followership itself is a process that entails the response of those in subordinate positions (followers) to those in superior positions (leaders). However, followers may also initiate leadership actions, at least if leadership is defined as ‘a process of influence toward the accomplishment of goals’ (Houghton et al., 2003: 124). As Rost (1995: 134) pointed out, leadership at its best is a relation founded upon mutual purposes. Kellerman noted, in a simple zero-sum conception, that ‘followers are gaining power and influence while leaders are losing power and influence’ (2008: 18), whereas Nye (2008) argued that followers have more power than ever before. While the notion of power and influence as things that one can possess is simplistic, because power and influence are nothing if not inherently relational (Clegg and Haugaard, 2009), rather than being a manifestation of possessive individualism (Macpherson, 1962), the idea is clear enough: organizational relationships are becoming less asymmetrical. In summary, as Kellerman (2008: 25) pointed out, ‘this is the time of the follower’.

Followers should thus be capable of articulating competing demands and transcending multiple levels of competence by revealing independent thinking in the self domain; they express competence in the domain of others by simultaneously caring about the leader and stretching his/her views; they show competence in the domain of the organization by simultaneously maintaining and changing its practices. It is in this sense that followers may have a strategic role contributing to the creation of organizations characterized by both self-discipline and a learning orientation. Transcendent followers are those who excel at multiple levels in fruitful relations of self, others and organization. The relation to transcendent leaders is evident: Crossan et al. (2008) defined transcendent leaders as those ‘who lead within and amongst the levels of self, others and organization’ (2008: 570). We consider that organizations also need transcendent followers, people that express high levels of competence within and among the levels of self, others and organization.

Followership as the domain of self

Followers competent at the level of self have a capacity to self-manage (Manz and Sims, 1980). These followers have the means necessary to direct their own activities effectively toward the achievement of organizational goals. Traditionally, however, notions of being followers or employees have been associated with the practice of obedience rather than with self-awareness and self-management.

The category of a follower is not equivalent to that of an employee. An employee is usually expected to respond positively to incentive schemes, corporate culture and other techniques that frame their organizational relations. A follower, by definition, is, in principle, someone free to choose to follow or not because their choice to follow or not implies judgement of the qualities of leadership: their loyalties can shift. They are not discursively fixed, ideologically, in a compliant role, as simply employees for whom conformance is shown, at a minimum, by being there at work. More is expected of followers than mere presence.

Authors such as Hamel (2007) and Carney and Getz (2009) have built on the notion that, indeed, more is demanded of employees: they have abandoned traditional modes of managing and organizing in favour of newer models in which, normatively, employees are no longer seen as a mass of interchangeable parts but should be viewed as individuals. Hamel sees the impact of this change as significant, especially for companies that organize around the assumption of worker initiative rather than around obedience. He illustrates the point with the case of Toyota, a company that represents first-line employees as problem-solvers and change agents (Hamel, 2006: 74). Followers empower leaders by relationally conjoining their projects to those of the leader and selectively adapting the leaders’ message to their roles: they act as disciples, spreading the word, unless, like Judas, they turn traitor because their followership is based on premises that are disappointed.

Where individuals no longer necessarily rely on organizations to manage their careers (Gratton, 2004) and where the nature of the employment relationship is not unilaterally defined for them (Rousseau, 2005), change is afoot. Some organizations are discovering new roles for followers, positing that individuals are able to manage themselves and to remain true to their values and beliefs – sometimes even in opposition to the organization. Followers who are competent in the domain of the self are those who think independently and try to protect and value their human capital. As Kelley observed (1988: 144), ‘the key to being an effective follower is the ability to think for one-self – to exercise control and independence and to work without close supervision. Good followers are people to whom a leader can safely delegate responsibility, people who anticipate needs at their own level of competence and authority’.

To remain faithful to one’s open and fluid identity, followership demands some degree of self-leadership. Self-leadership is the ‘process through which people influence themselves to achieve the self-direction and self-motivation needed to perform’ (Houghton et al., 2003: 126). Approaches to organizational development based upon self-development, such as Kaizen (Imai, 1986), rely to some extent on the principle of self-criticism (Chia, 2003). In order to contribute to organizational improvement, one needs to start by developing oneself, a challenge that requires self-awareness and self-regulation. Development of self-awareness is particularly important because emotional aspects that bubble under, below the awareness of the participants, often influence leadership dynamics (Lord et al., 1999). Competence at the level of self is particularly important for organizational learning in highly competitive environments and depends critically on characteristics such as self-awareness, independent thinking and self-management. Facilitating learning and creativity demands the recognition of organizational respect for employee autonomy. It is the richness of independent thinking and the need to understand ‘why’ – rather than ‘how’ – that makes organizational learning and creative discovery possible (Carney and Getz, 2009).

When individuals accept traditional modes of thinking and doing, they will replicate past practices, not introducing the variation that is necessary for improvement and renewal. Followers who excel at the level of self-management are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, have an interest in and assume responsibility for, the development of personal competence and mastery (Kelley, 1992; Senge et al., 1994). Employees committed to self-development may harm rather than protect their ego as they step outside comfort zones, redefining boundaries and relevant boundary objects over which they have less control (Ashforth and Black, 1996; Ashforth and Tsui, 1991). They see their role as active in the organization and engage in ‘conversations within themselves’ (Senge et al., 1994: 195). Being responsible self-managers, they have a motive to increase the value of their human capital. In this sense, they are no longer traditionally subordinated employees but rather emancipated members of their organizations: they choose to engage rather than being controlled (Gratton and Ghoshal, 2003). Competence at the level of self is therefore crucial to assess the quality of individual contributions to the organization, to evaluate the return on one’s investment in the organization and to preserve employability.

Followership and the domain of others

We refer to the capacity to build and sustain rich, constructive relationships with peers and leaders as the domain of others. Follower competence in the domain of others refers to the skills involved in lateral and upward relationships. Rich relationships with peers and leaders are a potential source of social capital (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Followers are a crucial part in the process of developing and sustaining social capital. To protect the organization’s flexibility in dynamic environments, organizations need to create relational processes based on trust rather than hierarchical fiat. Trust, as a form of social capital, decreases transaction costs, expands behavioural repertoires and helps to build further trust (Bromiley and Cummings, 1996; Dasgupta, 1988; Kramer, 1999), not only in subordinate–leader relationships, but also in lateral relationships, as is the case of teams (Costa, 2003).

A relational view of leadership considers not only the richness of relationships between leaders and followers (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) but also the richness of the relationships between followers. Constructive relationships help the organization to create spirals of positivity (Cunha et al., 2009), whereas low-trust relationships create defensiveness and protection from others (Edmondson, 1999). The creation of organizational environments rich in trust, while it is influenced by leaders, is crucially affected by the capacity of peers to manage each other in a positive way. Organizational members who express other-oriented behaviours, such as citizenship tendencies (Grant and Mayer, 2009), acts of compassion (Lilius et al., 2008), and gratitude (McCullough et al., 2002), display competence in the domain of others, which also requires emotional intelligence, namely understanding others’ emotions and empathy (Goleman, 1998; Wolff et al., 2002), and social intelligence (Zaccaro et al., 1991).

Followers with competence in the domain of others recognize the importance of ‘how we handle ourselves and each other’ (Goleman, 1998: 3) and have been shown to help in the building of positive relationships with other organizational members, including leaders and peers (Goleman, 1998; Grewal and Salovey, 2005), as well as with customers (Kernbach and Schutte, 2005; Weng, 2008). Emotionally intelligent followers co-lead teams in the path to the creation of social capital and sometimes counter the negative effects produced by leaders (Druskat and Wolff, 2001; Goleman and Boyatzis, 2008). In this perspective, followers must be competent at the level of others, especially at the level of the team. Team dynamics, in fact, have a life of their own, supplanting the leader’s influence in a relational perspective (e.g. Kets de Vries, 2011). Good teams may be those that build on top of the leader’s strengths and neutralize the leader’s weaknesses.

For organizations competing in highly dynamic environments, these types of relationships may be crucial because, by increasing social capital, they facilitate adaptation by making the organization more organic and resilient, characteristics that are particularly important in fast-changing environments. Beunza and Stark’s (2003) ethnography of the recovery of a lower Manhattan trading room after the 9/11 attacks showed how resilience critically depends on strong personal attachments rather than on purely professional/functional relationships (see also how high-quality relationships facilitate resilience in Caza and Milton, 2011). This extreme case is in line with other research showing that technical competence at the individual level is insufficient to create competence at higher levels, namely at the level of interactions (Collins, 2001).

Followership at the organizational level

Followership also manifests itself at the organizational level. Good followers have been presented as critical for several organizational functions, including environmental scanning (Day and Shoemaker, 2004), performing extra-role behaviors (Podsakoff et al., 2000), responding to unexpected situations that may disrupt the service standards (Cunha et al., 2009), and others with systemic relevance. Good organizational functioning may be facilitated by followers who represent themselves as organizational citizens and who express an interest in helping the organization. Where followers show dedication to the organization it tends to be taken positively. Numerous accounts of the importance of these behaviours can be considered. Day and Schoemaker (2008) cite the episode of the receptionist who redirected the attention and the research of experimenters in a pharmaceutical company from a failing scientific course to a successful one, suggesting that vigilant followers may help to build vigilant organizations.

Followers can contribute by being proactive (Frese and Fay, 2001). Given the poor environmental record of their company, a small ‘aggregate’ of employees started Ben and Jerry’s pro-environmental initiatives. Environmental concerns, which became an important component of the company’s identity, were in fact ignited without the approval or even the knowledge of top managers (Mirvis, 1994). The initiative of a group of ‘tempered radicals’ (Meyerson and Scully, 1995) with strong environmental values is a further example of proactiveness. Instead of waiting for managerial action to solve what they viewed as a problem of flawed environmental practice, these followers took the issue as their own and made change happen.

Finally, followers can be persistent, in other words be capable of carrying on in the face of resistance and setbacks. One of the best-known examples of persistence that had an organizational outcome was the development of Post-It Notes at 3 M. The story of the Post-It Note shows a long process of internal venturing before the eventual launch of what became a big hit. Consider the description of Art Fry (1987), who participated in the process: ‘Post-It Notes wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if I had stopped with submitting the idea and hadn’t gone to the work of getting materials and making samples. The old story that invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration is true and my perspiration on this project had just begun.’ Stories of persistence can also be found in ‘skunk works’, unapproved projects that are developed informally by ‘intrapreneurs’ that introduce unplanned variation that may end up benefitting the organization despite authoritative resistance to unofficial projects (Gwynne, 1997).

The case for transcendent followership

Transcendent followers are those who contribute within and across each of the levels of self, others and organization. Not all followers will reveal the capacity to be effective at the three levels. Some followers may be skilled in developing their competences but less competent in applying them in their relationships with others and in contributing to the organization. Some may be competent in relating with others but less competent in terms of their self-actualization and their contribution to the organization. Others may be devoted members of the organization but, in some way, reveal weaknesses at the level of self and others. In this section, we discuss a number of followership competence scenarios and their impact in terms of firm performance (the summary of the levels of follower competence can be found in Table 1).

Table 1.

Levels of follower competence.

	Self	Others	Organization	Explanation
Competence at one level	+	−	−	Competence at the level of self
				(+) High contributions when task interdependence low
				(−) Inferior contributions when task interdependence high
	−	+	−	Competence at the level of others
				(+) High contributions when execution more relevant than strategizing
				(−) Inferior contributions when strategizing more relevant than execution
	−	−	+	Competence at the level of organization
				(+) high level of short-term performance when execution prevails under time constraints
				(−) low levels of long-term performance when independence is necessary
Competence at two levels	+	+	−	Competence at the level of self and others
				(+) High contributions when mobilize resources on behalf of the organization
				(−) Inferior contributions when mobilize resources against the organization
	+	−	+	Competence at the level of self and organization
				(+) High short-term contributions when task interdependence low
				(−) Inferior long-term contributions when task interdependence high
	−	+	+	Competence at the level of others and organization
				(+) High contributions when expresses dedication
				(−) Inferior contributions when expresses alienation
Competence at three levels	+	+	+	Transcendent follower
				(+) High contributions in the long run
				(−) Inferior contributions when organization favours obedience

Followership at a single level

Followers with high self-competence and lower levels of competence with regard to others and the organization may bring a limited organizational contribution. Ed Catmull (2008: 66), co-founder of Pixar, observed that it is tough ‘getting talented people to work effectively with one another’. Individually talented followers may be interested in creating value for themselves, expressing minimal concern for the rest of the organization and its members (including their leaders), focusing on individual achievement and being overachievers.

Groups and organizations with individual talents who practice highly developed possessive individualism and thus display only a limited capacity or willingness to care about co-workers or the organization are limited in their achievements (Collins, 2001). Individual competence, or being competent at the level of the self, may be a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for collective success. Individualistic followers (Chaleff, 1995), those who tell only what they think without obtaining the support of others, may actually end up being marginalized. The benefits of competence at the level of the self may be neutralized by lack of competence at the levels of others and the organization, especially when there is a need to bring others to join the venture.

Overachievers, however, have a destructive potential, as they tend to care too little about others. Spreier, Fontaine and Malloy (2006) studied the process of leaders running amok and stressed the problems associated with this approach. The same individual orientation may apply to followers: if task interdependence is low, competence at level of self may be positive, as interactional demands are limited. If task interdependence is high, then this competence at the level of self may lose value when it is not combined with competence at other levels, as interpersonal and process conflict may neutralize individual competence (Jehn, 1997). From this we suggest that:

Proposition 1. Followers with a high self-competence and low competences at other levels will be associated with (a) high levels of performance when task interdependence is low and with (b) low levels of performance when interdependence is high.

Some followers may develop a higher level of competence in the domain of others than at the level of self and the organization. There are several reasons why a high competence at the level of others may not be matched by equivalent competence at the levels of self and organization. First, the need to belong may be so powerful (Leary and Baumeister, 2000), and the desire to maintain good relationships with co-workers may be so pronounced (Fernet et al., 2010), that a follower may put the team above personal and organizational interests. In this case, the reasoning is that what is good for the team is good for the other levels. Group level identification may be especially powerful in the case of self-leading teams (Neck et al., 1996). Research shows that, in these teams, pressures to align may be very difficult to counter (Barker, 1993). Being a good team worker is an important competence, especially when it comes to smooth execution. However, when independence and initiative are more valuable, this competence may lose value and harm the collective in the long run. Good team workers may suppress independent thinking in order to protect the team from conflict. If their mission is to execute, this may be beneficial. But if independence is more relevant and task conflict is recommended, they may not be able to articulate their views in an independent way, in order not to disturb the team, self-limiting their contribution in the process. From this we extract our second proposition:

Proposition 2. Followers with a high competence at the level of others and low competences at other levels will be associated with (a) high levels of performance when execution is more relevant than independence and with (b) low levels of performance when independence is more important than execution.

In some cases, followers may display high competence in managing the organization and be low in managing the self and others because the individual in question strives to contribute to the organization but at a personal cost as well as underestimating the level of others. The process is well established in several organizational literatures. The charismatic relationship, for example, may elicit a dedication to the leader and the organization that becomes unquestioning obedience (Shamir, 1991). When this occurs, followers feel like they are being ‘taken care of by the leaders [and] thus become pawns in the hands of those who have climbed to higher echelons of those organizations’ (Shamir, 1991: 85). While this may be productive in the short run, because it creates organizations that vigorously respond to the leader’s visioning, it will deprive the organization of independent thinking and limit its capacity to grow the development of its members. When charismatic leaders create a mass of dependent followers, they are hardly creating sustainable organizations, as history has shown repeatedly. This leads us to our third proposition:

Proposition 3. Followers with a high competence at the level of organization and low competences at other levels will be associated with (a) high levels of short-term performance when execution prevails and with (b) low levels of long-term performance when independence is necessary.

Followership at two levels

Employee initiative and influence can, in some cases, reveal high levels of competence in managing self and others but a low level of competence in terms of managing the organization. The literature offers a number of cases that substantiate this possibility. For example, according to LMX theory, leaders may develop differential relationships with members of their in-group and out-group (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). When members of the out-group perceive themselves in this situation, one or more may assume the initiative to unite the out-group in order to confront the leader and its in-group. The ability of any subgroup members to devise a personal strategy and to aggregate the rest of the out-group with his/her vision may result in a cohesive subgroup that will counter what they see as the leader’s discrimination. In this case, the competence of the informal emergent leader with respect to self and others will not necessarily lead to higher organizational performance. When this energy is directed to a pro-organizational cause, it can be a force for change, for example to start a valuable initiative or to counter an abusive boss (Hobman et al., 2009). However, it may actually decrease performance given the out-group’s opposition to the leader’s orientation and directives. From this we derive our next proposition:

Proposition 4. Followers with high competence in managing self and others, but low in the competence of managing the organization will be associated with (a) high levels of performance when they mobilize resources on behalf of the organization and (b) low levels of performance when they mobilize resources against the organization.

Some people have high competence in managing self and organization but are low in terms of managing others, which may be beneficial for the organization in the short run but less positive in the long run. Professional experts competent in their own domain may bring good results that favour the organization in the short run but damage social capital as time passes. Casciaro and Lobo’s (2005) figure of the ‘competent jerk’ illustrates this possibility. In this case the personal contribution may be positive in terms of individual performance but their lack of consideration for others may impede the development of social ties and the growth of social capital. When it happens, short-term benefits will not necessarily contribute to the sustainability of results in the long term.

A conscientious, prudent and self-disciplined employee (self) may adopt several organizational citizenship behaviours (e.g. making constructive suggestions, or communicating a good image of the organization outside) that benefit the company. However, if (s)he has not developed relational competences for cultivating good relationships with colleagues and leaders, (s)he can damage the team’s emotional climate, cooperation and performance. Some followers are good performers and loyal employees but they lack the social competency to relate positively with others. From this we propose:

Proposition 5. Followers with a high self and organizational competence but low in terms of managing others will be associated with (a) high short-term performance when task interdependence is low and (b) low long-term performance, as well as short-term performance, when task interdependence is high.

People who commit themselves to the organization’s mission will potentially contribute positively to it. Employees dedicated both to others and to the organization are often described as good team workers and devoted organizational members. Being less competent at the level of self is not necessarily an obstacle to being a good employee and to making a positive contribution to the organization. Where the organization’s leaders and managers seek to develop a good ethical organization, dedication to others and the organization may be positive. Follower dedication may result from personal characteristics, such as a high degree of self-monitoring (Snyder, 1974), relational or collective identity orientation (Howell and Shamir, 2005), and low self-concept clarity (Howell and Shamir, 2005). These individual dispositions influence the follower’s willingness to act according to situational requirements, such as those imposed by the leader or from team and/or organizational pressures to conformity, as well as particular preferences for more personal (i.e. based on direct relationship with the leader) or socialized (i.e. based on the status of the leader as a representative of the organization) relations with the leader (Howell and Shamir, 2005). Nonetheless, if this dedication represents a progressive lack of consideration for one’s values, goals or needs, then it can lead to feelings of alienation that are more associated with passivity and burnout (Maslach et al., 2001) than with work engagement. From this we derive the following proposition:

Proposition 6. A follower with a high competence in managing others and organization but who is low in terms of managing self may be associated with (a) high performance when expressing dedication and with (b) low performance when expressing alienation.

Between-level conflicts

The uncritical focus of much leadership literature on organizations in terms of the explicit interests that top management defines may lead to the conclusion that the critical level for follower contribution is their focus on the organizational level. When followers excel in organizational level responsibilities, firm performance is expected to be positive. However, as we mentioned, in the long run, followers focusing on the organizational level may contribute to negative outcomes, especially when the motives and strategies proposed by leaders and the organizational context are problematic. Moreover, competence at the level of the self can be extremely important in cases in which tension or conflict exists between levels. Without courage and integrity (self), they may contribute to support poor decisions and damage the organization. Responsible followers may legitimately contest goals established by the hierarchy if these goals counter values or risk harm the organization’s reputation. They are also better able to think independently and adopt a critical attitude (Kelley, 1992) in opposing those decisions that incubate in high cohesiveness contexts that favour groupthink, even when relationships with peers and colleagues are at stake. The idea that good employees are those who try to reach their goals, may not hold when goal setting triggers dysfunctional processes with the conformity of the employee (Ordoñez et al., 2009), such as, for example, unethical courses of action stimulated by pressure to attain the goal. Good employees may be those who confront goals that contain a potential for self and organizational destruction.

Self-reference and a clear sense of personal identity characterize capable people in followership positions (Crossan et al., 2008). The personal anchors and moral compasses of every organizational member may contribute more to the creation of healthy organizations than the exercise of obedience to authority and a mere focus on execution. Some degree of obedience to authority is necessary for organizations to function but, as demonstrated by classic psychology studies, obedience to authority may become extreme (Milgram, 1974) and harm the organization and its members as well as the wider society (Kellerman, 2004).

Considering the above, we predict that healthy, vibrant organizations will be spaces in which people have the freedom to vent disagreements and contribute to the organization’s learning in an open, honest way, rather than spaces in which people suppress their opinions and doubts in the name of harmony and cohesion. Better organizations are characterized by polyphony (Kornberger et al., 2006). Neutralizing voice may be positive episodically for those doing the silencing but it can be potentially negative for them in the long term as they fail to learn. Both leadership (Weick, 2001) and followership may thus be viewed as the legitimation of doubt. Research on organizational learning suggests that psychological safety encourages learning through honest discussions (Edmondson, 1999). Obedience is a particularly dangerous ingredient when it occurs in the context of an extreme leader and a situation without the proper combination of checks and balances (Howell and Shamir, 2005). Considering the above, we suggest:

Proposition 7. When facing conflicts between levels, followers with a high level of self-managing competence will be associated with higher long-term organizational performance than will followers with low levels of that competence.

Followership at the three levels

Transcendent followers who display high competence at all levels will contribute to the enhancement of firm sustainability in dynamic environments. The notion of transcendent followers, those that express high levels of competence in managing self, others and organization, will be associated with the highest level of firm performance, for the same reasons that led Ghoshal and Bruch (2003) to consider purposeful action taken by individuals the key to corporate rejuvenation. Organizational members might be ‘personally convinced that their activities served certain higher needs, contributed to something bigger and were important for the organization’ (Ghoshal and Bruch, 2003: 188) regardless of their position in the hierarchy. These people, in other words, express a strong conviction that they are doing a job that deserves to be done and display emotional attachment and strong personal responsibility for their work. The sense of competence in terms of self, others, and organization, may therefore be a pre-condition for someone to feel and act as a genuine adult and independent organizational citizen. Organizational citizens feel responsible for the organization, go beyond task requirements and express conscientious initiative (Borman, 2004) in a consistent way. Hence, in our final proposition, we suggest that:

Proposition 8. Transcendent followers with high levels of competence in terms of managing self, others and organization will be associated with higher levels of firm performance in the long run than followers with any other combination of competencies.

Conclusions and implications

The meaning of processes such as leadership and followership is changing: the language of authority and obedience, of supervisor and subordinate, is giving way to one of leadership/followership, with leaders and followers being seen as partners or allies (Bennis, 1999; Cunha et al., 2011) in search of high-quality relationships (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). As summarized by Frese and Fay (2001: 135), ‘many managers argue nowadays that they need active participants at work rather than passive implementers of orders from above’. Organizations stand or fall partly not only on the basis of how their leaders lead but also partly on the basis of how well their followers follow (Kelley, 1988). Effective followers, in this perspective, manage themselves well, are committed to the organization and to a purpose, principle, or person outside themselves, build their competence and denote courage, honesty and credibility through their actions. Sustainable organizations demand transcendent leaders and transcendent followers.

We have discussed the significant roles that followers may play in the renewal and adaptation of organizations to dynamic environments. We extended Crossan, Vera and Nanjad’s (2008) analysis of transcendent leaders to people in non-leadership positions. Our discussion suggested that followers’ roles go well beyond execution without interpretation. If we consider organizations as interpretive systems (Daft and Weick, 1984), then every organizational member may potentially contribute to the interpretation of changes in the environment and to the adaptation of the organization to these changes.

In spite of our argument in favour of a more careful consideration of the role of followers, we do not claim that there is symmetry of influence in terms of the official and sanctioned interpretations and the resulting influences. In the same way, we do not argue that the role of followers is identically influential in every organization. Further research will be needed to clarify which factors, organizational and environmental, have an impact on the degree of agency of followers and act as boundary conditions for the propositions suggested above. We expect that factors both internal and external to the organization influence the willingness and scope of follower participation.

Among environmental factors, we suggest that the level of competitive intensity (D’Aveni, 1995), the pace of environmental change (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997), and the level of uncertainty (Waldman et al., 2001) may all play key roles. The higher the level of competitive intensity, the faster the pace of environmental change and the greater environmental uncertainty, the more organizations may need the sophistication and personal initiative of their members in followership positions. In contrast and as contingency theory has long implied, organizations facing stable environments and competing on the basis of static efficiency may reach their goals via narrowness and repetition (Farjoun, 2010), by asking followers to follow. Among organizational factors, we consider that organizational design (Davis et al., 2009), the nature of bureaucracy (Adler and Borys, 1996), and the sense of collective ownership (Pearce and Jussila, 2010) may influence the way followers interpret their roles and the extent to which they can be proactive. Focusing on design, we anticipate that enabling bureaucracies provide the space that constraining ones do not and that a sense of collective ownership provides the stimulus for people to be active rather than passive.

Our study contributes to the management literature by exploring the role of followers, a topic still understudied and deserving of further attention. First, leadership is a relational process and, in this sense, studying it only by considering the leader’s side constitutes a biased and incomplete view. Researchers should consider the several participants in the leadership process rather than only the formal leader. Second, emerging forms of organization necessarily lead to a reconsideration of the nature of leadership and followership. Community forms of organization (O’Mahony and Ferraro, 2007), heterarchies (Beunza and Stark, 2003), as well as organizations structured around the principle of responsible autonomy (Fairtlough, 2005), are examples of designs that depart from the traditional view and re-equate the roles and responsibilities of followers.

In all these organizational forms, systems of checks and balances make sure that the powers of leaders are limited and that followers are not expected only to obey. These emerging organizational forms expose ways in which the traditional roles of leaders and followers may be challenged and new roles may emerge in the future. Such a change may be relevant for organizational researchers because, as Scott (2004: 12) points out, hierarchies may be increasingly ‘giving way to more decentralized and horizontal systems, particularly among organizations in the newer industries’. In this changing landscape, the careful reconsideration of the role of followers may thus be crucial for understanding leadership. New organizational forms tend to be supportive of Warren Bennis’ (1999) claim that exemplary leadership is not possible without full cooperation of followers.

With regard to managerial implications, our study reveals a number of possibilities. First, it suggests that the role of progressive managers will in part consist of supporting transcendent followers, that is organizational members with competence at the levels of self, others and the organization. From this perspective, transcendent leaders are those who create conditions for their employees fully to achieve their potential as transcendent followers and to inform their leadership in the process. Second, it suggests that follower development is a field as relevant as that of leadership development. There is an industry devoted to the development of great leaders but not to the development of great followers: an analogy would be for academies of music to focus only on conductors with little regard for the qualities of the orchestra. Devising a strategic role for followers can be a force for transformation in organizations. Third, by analysing the leadership process from the perspective of the follower, our discussion indicates that resistance to change may be the process through which leaders resist the agency of followers. There is no reason to assume that leaders resist this agency less than followers do, other than because of the ‘naturalization’ of academic views on the resistance to change that see it as a phenomenon that exclusively affects followers (Dent and Goldberg, 1999). When one looks at the leadership process from the follower’s side, one may get a different picture. Finally, followers’ engagement with leadership actions is not necessarily positive for organizations. Initiative and influence can in fact be used to achieve goals that are not sanctioned by the organization and counter those that are. In this regard, there is no difference between leadership exerted by leaders and influence exerted by followers: each can produce either good or bad results.

Further research on transcendent followership is needed to test the propositions advanced here. For example, the conditions that facilitate the emergence of transcendent followers as well as those that discourage people from acting as such, require investigation. Conditions such as time pressure and job control (Fay and Sonnentag, 2010), justice perceptions (Colquitt et al., 2001), and identification with the organization (Ashforth and Mael, 1989) may provide a useful insight into why people act as transcendent followers. Another possibility is to study the cross-cultural dimensions of transcendent followership. Several authors (e.g. Avolio et al., 2009; Kellerman, 2008) note that there are different templates for being a good follower. Different configurational contexts, differing in political or cultural constitution, may elicit different responses from followers (for an illustration, see the case of East and West Germany in Frese et al., 1996) and cross-cultural studies of followership may complement the voluminous research on cross-cultural dimensions of leadership (e.g. House et al., 1999).

The concept of followership may be construed differently in more advanced and newly forming industries versus more established ones with long histories of treating leaders and followers in a particular way (Avolio et al., 2009). The study of transcendent followers will also require the analysis of how these organizational members transcend the boundaries between work and non-work, namely how they link their professional and family lives. Future studies should also explore how the levels of self, other and organization interact with the societal level. Both leaders and followers contribute to social betterment, especially where they share efforts in pursuing such endeavours. One important question is how and in which conditions, transcendent followers are able to manage the levels of self, others and organization when higher purposes at the societal level are at stake and may collide with self, others, and/or organization interests. We have contributed, in summary, to a nuanced, multi-level, understanding of follower competence, which, in our view, is far more than merely a reflection of leader competence.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Miguel Cunha acknowledges support from Nova Forum. We thank Mary Crossan, Nadim Habib and John Huffstot for the comments and suggestions. Our sincere thanks for the comments received from the journal’s reviewing team.

Author biographies

Miguel Pina e Cunha is Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics. His research deals with positive and negative organizing, and emergent processes in organizations, such as improvisation, surprise and serendipity.

Arménio Rego is Assistant Professor at the Universidade de Aveiro. He has a PhD from ISCTE and has published in journals such as Applied Psychology: An International Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. His research deals with positive organizational behavior.

Stewart Clegg is Research Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, and Director of the Centre for Management and Organization Studies Research, and a Visiting Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics. His research is driven by a fascination with power and theorizing.

Pedro Neves is Assistant Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics. His research deals with trust and organizational change processes.

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