Northouse, Leadership 8e
52. Marcia must complete a management trainee program at the financial company at
which she was just hired. As part of the 18 week program, she shadows Ming who is an
experienced project manager. Although Marcia is not directly responsible for the
workload, she is inspired by Ming’s style. Marcia is experiencing which benefit of being
a follower, according to Carsten and colleagues?
A. followers first prove their worth
B. followers challenge leaders
C. followers support leaders
D. followers learn from leaders
53. Which of the following is most accurate about followers?
A. followers can play a harmful role in organizations
B. organizational harm is always the result of leader actions
C. by definition, followers cannot defy leaders
D. followership is an amoral concept
54. What is the name of the 2005 book by Jean Lipman-Blumen that explored the
question ‘why do people follow bad leaders’?
A. first followers
B. leaders eat last
C. the art of followership
D. the allure of toxic leaders
55. Lipman-Bluman argues that unhealthy followership is caused by subordinates’
needs to feel all of the following except ______.
A. safe
B. unique
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
C. goal-driven
D. a sense of community
56. Lipman-Bluman argues that a person with a very strong need to have a reassuring
authority figure in their life ______.
A. will certainly rise to a leadership position
B. is vulnerable to following abusive leaders
C. becomes an exemplary follower
D. is a pragmatic follower
57. Without much warning, Carla’s parents sent Carla to a boarding school 400 miles
away. Carla felt completely off balance and unsure in her new environment, knowing
none of the other students or the norms of the school. She followed along with the
rigorous work schedule, unreasonable rules, and constant criticism from teachers.
Caroline was susceptible to this abusive environment due to which psychological factor
outlined by Lipman-Bluman?
A. need for security and certainty
B. need to feel special
C. need for inspiring leaders
D. fear of failing
58. Which of the following is not one of the psychological factors that contributes to
follower susceptibility to toxic leaders, as outlined by Lipman-Blumen?
A. fear of ostracism
B. fear of powerlessness to challenge a bad leader
C. knowledge of what inspiring leadership should feel like
D. need for membership in the human community
59. According to Lipman-Blumen, leaders who have dysfunctional personal
characteristics and engage in destructive behaviors are known as ______ leaders.
A. alluring
B. toxic
C. charismatic
D. authoritarian
60. Destructive leaders such as Hitler and those who lead White supremacy groups
gain followers because they prey on people’s psychological need to ______.
A. become well-known
B. feel secure
C. feel powerless
D. feel chosen or special
61. Brandon is a volunteer leader on his church’s human relations committee which is
charged to oversee staff job performance. Over the past year, Brandon has watched the
senior pastor make selfish decisions, spread ill-will about the music leaders, and
demand that education groups read only certain books. Brandon is very uncomfortable
with the pastor’s behaviors, but when it comes time for his committee to submit an
annual evaluation of the senior pastor, Brandon gives the pastor a glowing report.
Brandon is likely falling prey to which psychological factor that make him susceptible to
dysfunctional leadership?
A. fear of ethical backlash
B. fear of ostracism and social death
C. need to feel chosen
D. need for security
62. Jacki works as a corporate engagement specialist at an exclusive art gallery. She
reports to Sean, the executive director who is a renowned artist and well-recognized in
the community. For years, Sean been sexually harassing the women who work at the
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
gallery. Jacki has suffered the treatment for a long time while promoting the gallery and
increasing its funding. One day Sean’s behavior goes beyond what Jacki can handle so,
despite how uncomfortable she is with the risk, she reports him to the board. Jacki is
overcoming which psychological factor that makes people susceptible to dysfunctional
leaders?
A. fear of powerlessness
B. need to feel chosen
C. need for certainty
D. fear of conformity
63. In exclusive clubs and ritualistic groups like fraternities and sororities, followers can
become vulnerable to bad leadership when they are unable to regulate their own
personal need for ______.
A. respect
B. authority
C. belonging
D. power
64. The psychological need followers have for membership in the human community is
most closely aligned with the notions of ______.
A. purpose in Authentic Leadership
B. individualized Consideration in Transformational Leadership
C. achievement-orientation in Path Goal Theory
D. in-groups and out-groups in LMX
65. Followership as an area of study is considered ______.
A. in its early stages
B. fully developed
C. unnecessary due to robust leadership models
D. controversial
66. One of the key benefits of studying followership is that ______.
A. it reaffirms the importance of leaders
B. it elevates the importance and value of followers
C. it explains the necessary power differential between leaders and followers
D. existing leadership theories can now be debunked
67. The textbook makes the argument that ______.
A. the study of followership is less important than the study of leadership
B. the study of followership is just as important as the study of leadership
C. the study of followership is a 21st Century fad that will soon end
D. the study of followership is more important than the study of leadership
68. Followers will oftentimes become passive and inactive around toxic leaders because
______.
A. followers in a toxic leader situation are simply waiting for the right time to take over
B. the majority of all followers are bystanders according to Kellerman
C. followers fear losing their security and sense of community with the group
D. most followers are not energetic by definition
69. Followers can most accurately be described as ______.
A. people who have less power than the leader but are critical in the leadership process
B. people who do not innately have the capacity to become leaders themselves
C. people who are not motivated to step up into leadership roles
D. more passive and introverted than leaders
70. Categorizing followers into different types is helpful because ______.
A. followers of the same type can be placed on teams together
B. leaders use follower types to justify destructive behavior
C. it helps us understand the ways people act when they are in followership roles
D. the typologies, taken together, provide a consistent predictor of organizational
performance
71. The fact that recent leadership literature has now focused more explicitly on
followership than ever before is considered ______.
A. a weakness of followership studies
B. a strength of followership studies
C. a conflict with leadership studies
D. a scholarly trend on the decline
72. Some of the current followership literature challenges us to take leadership ______.
A. to a global level
B. in a new direction
C. more seriously
D. off its pedestal
73. From a relational-based perspective, the new followership literature encourages us
to view leadership as ______.
A. a process where power differentials should be underscored
B. a position that more followers should strive toward
C. a co-constructed process wherein followers and leaders share equally
D. the vantage point from which follower roles are determined
74. A weakness of the study of followership is ______.
A. leadership scholars and followership scholars will never see eye to eye
B. its extreme focus on predictive statistical models
C. followers are not important in real world organizations
D. little empirical research has been conducted on the topic
75. The leader-centric orientation of our world is considered ______.
A. a strength of followership studies
B. a weakness of followership studies
C. irrelevant to followership studies
D. important only in non-Western contexts
76. Followership research is about ______.
A. how and why followers respond to leaders
B. how followers can acquire traits to become leaders
C. challenging the validity of leadership theories
D. helping corporations achieve better bottom line results
77. Which of the following is not accurate about the study of followership?
A. it expands our understanding of what contributes to organizational success
B. it helps us appreciate the critical and complex role followers play
C. it has a longer, richer history than the study of leadership
D. it can help us understand why some people follow toxic leaders
78. Training and development programs in followership are ______.
A. widely available in the consulting industry
B. currently more popular than leadership training programs
C. all based on the work of Barbara Kellerman
D. are not popular programs currently but are predicted to become more important
79. When applied to organizational life, knowledge about followership can help leaders
by viewing each follower uniquely and adjusting the leadership style accordingly. Put
this way, studies of followership are closely aligned with all of the following leadership
theories except ______.
A. transformational leadership
B. leader–member exchange
C. behavioral approach
D. adaptive leadership
80. Early research on followership resulted in a series of ______ which form the building
blocks for additional theory building.
A. case studies
B. typologies
C. autobiographies
D. psychometric instruments
1. The literature on followership offers elegant theories of how the followership process
works.
2. Kelley framed notions of followership in a negative light.
3. In the proposed theoretical model of followership by Uhl-Bein, follower traits are
included.
4. The followership approach is both descriptive and prescriptive in nature.
5. Effective followers recognize their relative powerlessness but do not let that prevent
them from challenging a leader when necessary.
6. A recently proposed theory of followership includes followership characteristics,
leader characteristics, followership and leadership behaviors, and followership
outcomes.
7. Followers can create contexts for the rise of destructive leaders.
8. According to Kelley’s model, a “star” follower is both active and dependent.
9. The “reversing the lens” theoretical framework highlights the impact of followers on
the followership process.
10. A follower’s degree of activity or engagement has been one of the most consistent
constructs to examine in multiple followership studies.
1. Give the definition of followership as presented in your textbook.
2. Name the types of followers according to Kelley’s typology.
3. Name two psychological factors that explain why some people are susceptible to
following destructive leaders.
4. Carsten and colleagues offered new perspectives on followers that cast followers in a
positive light. Name three of those positive facets of being a follower.
5. What are the two ways of theorizing about followership?
1. The word “leader” is not used in the textbook’s definition of followership. Why not?
Explain your thinking.
2. Think of a workplace or organization within which you have been a follower recently.
Using one of the followership typologies from the text and its associated dimensions,
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
name what type of follower you are. Use examples of your behavior and a leader’s
behavior to support your claim.
3. Create your own original typology of followership. How many dimensions would it
include, and what are those dimensions? Name and describe each of the resulting
types of followers.
4. The Leadership Co-Created Process model has four elements. Describe those
elements and describe how the elements are related.
5. What conditions will it take for research on followership to become as popular as
research on leadership? Consider global, cultural, or societal conditions.
6. Leaders will always be more powerful than followers. Defend or refute.
Ans: Answers will vary. Students who believe leaders are more powerful may point to
just how ingrained most cultures are in putting leaders on a pedestal, perhaps even
invoking human’s relationship with spirituality and religions that are monotheistic.
