Followership

I had not previously considered the amount of power that could be attributed to a follower, rather than a leader, until we did the exercise that was based on the coffee breaks of a company. Each worker was able to show a different kind of personality to their own, either in asking many questions, being passive, argumentative or any others. The ideas that we had just learnt before the exercise of an urban terrorist or walking undead were styles that some people decided to choose, but out of that matrix came a very useful idea. This idea that I liked was that it is possible for people to agree with the management and disagree with the management, but the important part of the follower was how much energy they put into this disagreement or agreement. We can move certain individuals from an urban terrorist - somebody who will actively try to disagree with the manager, to a fan, someone who will fully support the manager, but if we try to convert somebody who has little interest and energy in the situation, it can be very difficult. Another idea from this matrix was the idea that sometimes it might be useful to have somebody in the group that disagreed regularly with the management, because this can challenge the ideas that other people are taken for granted, and give an entirely different point of view to a group dynamic. These ideas are what we learnt on that day. They are useful because, as future managers, we will need to know how to deal with many different types of people, and a blanket strategy can't be employed to an entire workforce. Some people will respond differently to an autocratic style or a l'aissez faire style. It is important to identify those around that will respond best to certain styles, rather than immediately sacking an individual that does not respond to your style.

: 25 Jan 2010 14:49 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem