Leading through Following: Understanding the Intersection of Followership, Leadership and Collaboration

The dynamic between leadership and followership is important, yet historically in education, only leadership has seen emphasis and examination. Followership in itself is not a new concept because virtually every individual spends more time in the role of follower than leader and there have been both leaders and followers throughout the course of history. Even within the described structures (i.e., military, business, culture), there is still scant research on followership which unsurprisingly results in virtually no research on followership in K-12 educational settings. As schools are comprised of teachers and administrators in the roles of followers and leaders, understanding nuances in the leadership-followership dynamic provides opportunities for improving collaboration and thus school climate. In her book "Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders," Barbara Kellerman (2008) defines followership, what it means to be a follower, and identifies types of followers in four different contexts/industries. While Kellerman's work does not specifically focus on K-12 educational settings, the article's authors feel that the theories and ideas she posits can apply to the teacher/administrator dynamic found in schools. Further, they feel that Kellerman's work can support effective collaboration between teachers and administration. As such, the authors will apply Kellerman's ideas regarding followership to K-12 school settings to answer the following questions: (1) What is followership and how does it influence leadership? (2) What are the characteristics, types, and behavior of followers? and (3) How does the followership/leadership dynamic intersect with improved collaboration?