Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
Case 12.1: Bluebird Care
Case Synopsis and Analysis
Robin Martin started Bluebird Care, an in-home health-care agency, 20 years ago with a staff
of two and five clients. The agency has grown to a staff of 25 serving 50 clients. Over the
years, the agency has become larger and the connection to employees has become less
personal. Robin feels as if she is losing her connections with her clients and her employees.
There is a strong staff, but Robin relies mostly on Terry as she is positive and promotes the
agency well. If there are issues to manage, Robin often consults with Terry. Terry is a direct
contrast to Belinda, another employee. A 5-year staff member, Belinda, is stubborn and stuck
in her ways. She also challenges Robin and agency rules, sometimes in a bullying way. In a
recent confrontation between Robin and Belinda regarding a policy, Terry supported Robin
and the policy was upheld. This will not likely end the friction between Belinda and Robin.
Robin’s son, Caleb, hires and trains employees, and Robin’s son-in-law, James, answers the
phone and does scheduling—both stressful, busy jobs. As a manager, James is loyal, does his
work in a quiet, respectful manner and seldom causes problems. Caleb works hard to instill
cohesiveness with the spread-out group of employees while also trying to reduce turnover
with their Millennial-age staffers. Caleb worries that the caring philosophy his mother started
the agency with is becoming lost.
Learning objectives:
• Students should be able to apply principles of followership to leader behaviors.
• Students should apply Chaleff’s Follower Typology to this case to better
understand the concepts of followership.
Answers to questions in the text:
1. Who are the followers at Bluebird Care?
2. In what way is followership related to the mission of agency? Do Robin and her
managers recognize the importance of followership? Explain.
This organization, by nature of its cause, serves others. The mission is to support
health care for clients in their home. Therefore, each staff member that visits a client
3. Using the roles identified in Chaleff’s Follower Typology (Figure 12.4), what roles
do Terry, Belinda, Caleb, and James play at the agency?
Terry: Partner (high support and high challenge). Fully supportive of the leader, but is
always willing to challenge the leader when needed.
4. Using the Reversing the Lens framework (Figure 12.6), explain how Caleb and
James’s characteristics contribute to the followership outcomes at Bluebird Care?
Since both Caleb and James align their values with Robin, the “leader” (Robin) views
5. Terry and Robin have a unique relationship in that they both engage in leading and
following. How do you think each of them view leadership and followership?
Discuss.
Robin views her leadership through a lens of service. The service she provides to her
clients assists them in living more meaningful lives, which, in turn, gives Robin
purpose. With her subordinates, she tends to rely on leadership that is akin to the
Northouse, Leadership 8e
SAGE Publications, 2019
6. If you were an organizational consultant, what would you suggest to Robin that could
strengthen Bluebird Care? If you were a followership coach, how would you advise
Robin?
To strengthen the organization, I would suggest that Robin needs to create a 5-year
plan. The case study makes it appear that Robin is opposed or slow to accept change,
Potential teaching approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Followership and Case Study 12.1:
• Hold a lecture on followership.
• Ask students to read Case 12.1 and answer the questions.
• Discuss the case study questions as a class.
• Finally, the professor may choose to conduct in-class exercises listed below.
Exercises for this case study:
1) The professor should have a debate regarding the two distinct realities found in this
case study: change versus the status quo. Have each side should prepare for the
2) In a short essay (200–250 words) outline what might happen to Bluebird, if it
continues to grow each year? What might the organization look like in 5 years? Can