Followership

When grouping people into who falls under the “follower” category and who falls into the “leader” category I feel like this is a task that at times can be rather challenging. Especially when considering that many of the traits that are usually coined to describe a leader can many times be characteristics that can be seen in an active follower. Although I fee like it is true that leaders tend to be more inclined to propose a goal or a solution, and promote a new idea, I do believe that neither a leader nor a follower can stand alone. This is especially true when you think about how many individuals it takes to really execute a large project effectively and how being able to take direction is equally if not more important of a skill than being able to direct. However, one must take into consideration the type of followers that a leader at one point or another will work with and how this will affect the productivity level and effectiveness of the work based on the type of follower he or she is.

Unfortunately, as a result of several group activities I have done throughout my schooling I have met great contributors as teammates and individuals who do the absolute minimum to slide by. In one of my projects I remember it was a subject that was not my strong suit and I wanted to go the extra mile in order to show the teacher that I was at least making an effort to understand the ideas being taught. However, this was easier said than done when I ended up being paired up with two other individuals who wanted to do the absolute minimum. This is what I would take to be the isolates, the people who rely on others to do the work. Fortunately, although I was not able to accomplish as much as I hoped, I was lucky enough that the project did not end up a disaster considering the fact that I had to take it upon myself to do all of the work. However, it did make me realize that in life there are those who try their best to succeed and then their are others who just do not really care and just want to scrape by.

However, in another project I did, I luckily was placed with people who were really motivated, and enthusiastic about the topic. They wanted to meet about 3-4 times a week to work on the project in order to get it to the level of perfection. These people I admired, because while I wanted to do a good job I felt like they were very intense and at times overly devoted to perfecting the project. Even though I would consider them more of leaders in this circumstance (given the fact that they knew a lot about the subject and were very knowledgeable) I felt like these people could be grouped into diehards. Ultimately my experiences with followers and leaders made me realize something, there are circumstances where there is a clear line between who is a follower and who is a leader but many times this line is unidentifiable since I feel like we all possess qualities that make us both good followers and good leaders.