Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
Discussion Questions
Chapter 13: Followership
1. What has led to the recent interest in followership research?
2. What are a follower’s ethical responsibilities? How can a follower hold a leader accountable
for organizational ethics?
3. How do you explain that leadership and followership are co-created in a given situation by the
individuals involved?
5. Using Kelley’s follower Typology, how can a leader motivate alienated, passive, pragmatic, or
conformist followers to become exemplary followers?
6. Chaleff states that “followers need to take a more proactive role that brings it into parity with
the leader’s role.” What if the leader resists such a role transformation? What if the organization
doesn’t support such an influential role for followers?
7. Using Kellerman’s Follower Typology, what motivates a follower to be engaged? Is it loyalty
8. What personal examples can you think of where followers have affected leaders and
organizational outcomes?
9. Compare the “reversing the lens” approach and the “leadership as co–created process”
approach. Which concept of followership seems most useful to you? Why?
10. Under “New Perspectives on Followership” one positive facet of being a follower is that
followers “get the job done.” Followers carry out the mission of the group and the organization;
they do the work. What, then, is the leader’s role in this process?
11. What are some life lessons, job skills, or other competencies you have learned from a leader?
12. Why do some followers become “henchmen” for toxic leaders?
13. How can a person tell if he or she is psychologically susceptible to following a toxic leader?
15. What power resources do people in society have to challenge bad leaders?