Foilowership: Connotation, Influencing Factors, And The Mechanism Of Followership On Leadership Effectiveness

Followership theories, placing equal emphasis on followership and leadership, are abrand new field in the contemporary management research. In praise of followers’dynamism and creativity, these theories responded to the needs of constructing amutually beneficial relationship through cooperation between superiors andsubordinates in a dynamic environment, and are altering the direction of managementresearch which stressed leadership and blinded followership, thus guiding the newdirection of the leadership development.Focusing on the follower-leader/organizational context interaction, this studyexplored, with an organizational management perspective, the dynamic interactionbetween followership and leadership as well as the counter effect of followershipdynamism in the Chinese context. Three sub-studies were conducted.Study1: Connotation, structure, and measurement of followership. The author firstcollected typical traits of followership through open-ended questionnaires, structuredinterviews, and entrepreneur discussions. After selection, combination, categorization,revision, and theoretical saturation testing, the initial45scale items were acquired. Theauthor then pretested the scale. After EFA,25items were eliminated, and the final20-item scale was formed. Last, the author administered a large sample testing. Fivehundred and thirty-five (535) valid samples were collected and randomly divided intotwo groups. Group1was used for EFA and group2was used to determine reliabilityand validity.Study2: Main influencing factors of followership. This study chose leadership style(transformational and transactional) and organizational climate (supportive andcontrolling) as the independent variables and collected520valid samples. Using CFA,correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the author discussed thepositivity/negativity and level of the effect of leadership style and organizational climateon followership. Six control variables were chosen, including subordinates’ gender, age,education, length of employment, with or w/o managerial title, and corporate nature.Through variance analysis and LSD multiple comparisons, the effects of these controlvariables on followership were discussed.Study3: The Mechanism of followership on leadership effectiveness. This studyadopted the leader-follower dyadic method to collect data. The author first ran adiscriminant validity test on the instrument and correlation analysis of the variables and then SEM and hierarchical regression, and discussed the mediating and moderatingmechanism of followership on leadership effectiveness.The conclusions of the three studies were listed below:(1) Followership refers to the multi-dimensional characteristics and behaviors by whichfollowers follow leaders and interact with leadership and work context. It’s a fivedimensional construct which includes enterprising spirit, cognitive perception,execution skills, relation skills and ability to influence.(2) After evaluation of homogeneity reliability, split-half reliability, content validity,convergent validity, discriminant validity and empirical validity, the20-itemfollowership scale showed good reliability and validity and qualified as apsychometric measurement.(3) Transformational leadership has a positive effect on followership, specifically,intellectual stimulation and humanistic care have a significant positive effect onenterprising spirit, cognitive perception and executive skills; whereas transactionalleadership contingent reward and active management by exception has a positiveeffect and passive management by exception has a negative effect on followership.(4) Supportive organizational climate has a positive effect on followership, whereascontrolling organizational climate has a negative effect on followership.Specifically, enterprising spirits, cognitive perception and execution skills aresignificantly affected.(5) There was no significant variance of gender on followership, whereas certainvariances exist among age, length of employment, education, with or w/omanagerial title and corporate nature.(6) The Mechanism of followership on leadership effectiveness was elucidated. Theresearch indicated that LMX partially mediated and PJ-fit as well as PG-fitmoderated the relationship between followership and leadership effectiveness. Thehigher the level of PJ-fit and PG-fit, the stronger the interaction with followershipand the greater the positive effect on leadership effectiveness; and the lower thelevel, the weaker the interaction and the positive effect.Two major theoretical contributions are made with this study. It is the firstempirical management research under the Chinese cultural background andorganizational context, which clarified the connotation and structure of followership,using a multi-theoretical cross research method. A measurement scale was developedwith good reliability and validity and the main influencing factors were discussed to elucidate the mechanism of followership on leadership effectiveness. It was hoped tocontribute some preliminary work to the construction of the Chinese-characterizedfollowership theory. By exploring the counter effect of followership on leadership andorganization context, this study interpreted the meaning of the leader-follower dynamicinteraction to organizational development, radiated the management philosophy ofequally stressing leadership and followership which would facilitate to alter the biaseddirection of the management research, and contribute to the enrichment anddevelopment of leadership theories.The practical implications of this study also lie in two aspects. One is to helpleaders and followers clarify the connotation, structure and mechanism of action offollowership and re-acknowledge the importance that leadership-followershipinteraction has on the fulfillment of both sides’ value and the attainment of theorganizational goal. When leaders realize the best way to improve leadershipeffectiveness is to enhance subordinates’ followership, they would actively better themutually beneficial cooperative relationship with followers and gather more followersand stronger followership. Meanwhile, when followers understand what they need tofollow leaders and how to improve their performance, what they have, what they lack,and what they need, they can increase their followership qualities and cohesion to theorganization. The other is to expand the organizational human resources managementperspectives. This study took multiple perspectives to decipher the connotation,structure and mechanism of action of followership. It added new content to humanresources management of the new age. The results of this research can be used forcorporate training, and the measurement scale can be used for human resourcesevaluation and selection. The dynamism and creativity praised in this dissertation thatfollowers have when confronted with challenges could lead to the construction of thecorporate culture and atmosphere that promotes followership.