Since history began, leadership is a quality attributed to the success of an organization’s process and business.
Effective leadership is one of the essential tools in bringing feat and fortune to one’s company. Charismatic Leadership is a well-known type of leadership best used by prestigious people in history like Adolf Hitler and Martin Luther. Deskilled members of the organization and overdependence on the leader are usually the negative results of this form of leadership.Richard Bolden (2004) verbalized in his research report that “because of over-idealizing the leader, the members start to deskill themselves apart from their own critical thinking, visions, inspirations, and emotions. (p. 26)”.
The members of the team unconsciously devalue their own views and knowledge due to the exemplified and seemingly perfect characteristic of their leader and this brings about no good to his subordinates. A company surely benefits from this kind of leader, but once the leader leaves the company, great damages can surely occur in the company.Like what Samier said in his book, “A charismatic organization must find some way to “routinise”, that is, stabilize itself on more independent structural foundations to survive either the death of the leader, or the leader’s loss of gift” (Samier, 2005, p. 75). Furthermore, there is another important quality which also contributes to a company’s success and this is good followership. Robert Percy Neuschel (2005) believes that “support from followers is critical to achieving high performance” (p.
40).This principle is surely giving importance to the act of followership similar to how Nagelkerk (2006) described, “followers are essential because they accept or reject the leader and determines the scope of the leader’s power (p. 6)”. Followership is another attribute that can also provide negative impacts on the people.
One of which is that with followership, one loses the ability to voice out his concerns. Some followers are so timid and prefer to just follow due to their low self-esteem and self-seeking security.Usually, this is a reflection of a fear of failure, thus manifesting defensive attitudes and apathy (Umiker, 1984, p. 1). This is especially true to those passive kinds of followers.
Improper followership can bring the organization down. Followers who do not let their supervisors or leaders guide them will surely result in lack of unity of members and the leader of the organization. An organization that soon will fall apart is one idea that can be turned into reality if proper attention will not be given.Leadership and followership are two things that go hand in hand always.
Being a leader means being a follower. Misfortunes arising either from leadership or from followership, will surely affect each other and the company as a whole. Each of these people must be aware of the possible risks they may fall into so that remedy and treatment shall be done before things come to worse. Leaders and followers must always keep in their hearts and minds their real reasons and visions for being into such position, and never go astray from it.
