Followership is the ability to take directions, be loyal, obedient, and willing to follow a leader and become part of a group or a program to deliver your duties. Servant leadership is the philosophy of leadership, where the key goal is offering service. A servant leader is inspired to serve, shares power to the subordinates, puts their needs first, and helps them grow and perform to their level best. Servant leadership cannot exist without followership because there cannot be a leader without followers nor followers without leaders. A servant leader has the traits of honesty, appreciative, inspiring others, and building good relations while a good follower has the qualities of collaboration, loyalty, diligence, ambition, and obedience ( Davis, 2017). Followership can be categorized into loyalists, critics, opportunistic, or traitors ( Brutus, & Vanhove, 2017) . Leadership is an essential aspect of the success of a company or today's word. It can be inherited or incorporated. Followership and servant leadership are differentiated by their conduct nature, but they are interrelated. In this paper, I will be comparing and contrasting servant leadership and followership. The notion that all leaders are followers but not all followers are leaders can be used to illustrate the differences between the two philosophies. Leadership is an art, and it takes time for one to gain experience and exercise leadership. Conversely, followership entails close observation for those in leadership positions and the art of learning to become a leader.
A servant leader listens to other people's ideas when making a decision. Servant leadership makes use of army values and ethics to give room for peers and soldiers' development and growth in the work environment. Leaders seek for soldiers' views and opinions about a given situation. This involvement leads to a unit cohesion growth. The excellent servant leader respects and empathizes with the soldiers, and puts himself in their shoes to understand where they are coming from and consider their point of view. A servant leader shows commitment to subordinates' growth, stewardship, healing, persuasion, awareness, foresight, community building, and conceptualization.
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On the other hand, followership involves a different way of thinking. The result of a right or great outcome solely depends on how one can comprehend followership. A great follower gives ideas that enhance the success and experience of a situation to the leader. They have trust and confidence in their leaders and peers. In the army, a follower is a group under a noncommissioned officer, and they provide support and ideas when requested.
Followership is the flip side of leadership. Leadership is essential in success and performance, and so is followership. However, followership gets a small credit compared to leadership when it comes to performance. The relationship between company performance, management, and leadership is well understood and accepted. The board changes leaders when a company is falling, and the results confirm the importance of leadership. Good servant leadership leads to better management, performance, and success of an organization. Followership has a significant impact on company performance and success too. How well employees or a group of people follow directions and rules, determines the success of the company, and the leader. Followership takes the backseat to servant leadership, but it matters. If followership is a failure, nothing can be done, or what is done is contrary to what is expected. Followership issues lead to poor work ethic, lost opportunities, low customer satisfaction, lousy morale, lack of goal focus, weak competitiveness, high costs, low performance, and low product quality. Consequently, weak leadership and bad followership result in poor performance, organizational confusion, and adverse organizational effects.
Both servant leadership and followership philosophies share army values of respect, loyalty, and perform duties to both your subordinates and those above you ( Conzelmann, 2017) . These terms seek to improve soldiers, employees, and interpersonal relationships in an organization. They co-exist together to form cohesion and a great outcome. Not everyone can lead because there would be no follower, and not everyone can follow if there is no leader.
Servant leadership and followership have different ideas but coincide well on some level. Servant leaders involve others before making a decision that is suitable for everyone. Followers serve leaders by giving opinions, views, and help whenever required. Both philosophies contribute to the performance of an organization and have adverse effects if they are weak.
References
Davis, N. (2017). Review of followership theory and servant leadership theory: Understanding how servant leadership informs followership. In Servant Leadership and Followership (pp. 207-223). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Brutus, T., & Vanhove, A. (2017). Leading by serving: Redefining the roles of leaders and followers in today’s workplace. In Servant leadership and followership (pp. 261-288). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Conzelmann, J. D. (2017). Employee perspectives: The lack of servant leadership in organizations. In Servant leadership and followership (pp. 155-175). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
