The Antecedent And Consequences Of Leadership And Followership:A Longitudinal Study

The research work about leadership is shifting from the leadership-centric perspective to leadership-followership perspective.Researchers realized that followership is embedded in leadership research.There is no leadership if there is no followership.If someone is leading,then someone must be following.One of the main challenges in followership research is the measurement.This study measured the perceptions about leading and following of team members in a business simulation competition when they finished decision making at the end of each scenario.This study explored the effects of leadership and followership on role overload and membership viability at the individual level.At the team level,the study tried to illuminate the effects of target shared reality on leadership and followership.Drawing on role theory,social identity theory,and shared reality theory,this study built a conceptual model.The empirical study based on 42 teams in five wave collections showed that:(1)Time pressure has a positive effect on role overload while individual leadership and followership do not.(2)For collectivism individuals,followership has a positive effect on membership viability;for individualism individuals,followership has a negative effect on membership viability.(3)Shared reality in purpose has a positive effect on team followership via the mediation effect of team leadership.The results show that performing leadership and followership at the same time does not mean role overload;collectivists are more likely to be an excellent follower;achieved shared reality is able to boost the leading-following process.