On Followership, a First Pass
Question posed to Claude AI: Is everyone meant to be a leader, or are some people meant to be followers? What is an effective follower according to culture, philosophy, psychology, etc.?
On followership, a first pass without checks for accuracy (emphasis mine with blue underlines):
This is a rich question that cuts across traditions. Here's what different domains say:
Philosophy
Aristotle distinguished between those fitted to rule and those fitted to be ruled – not as insult but as natural differentiation. Confucius was more nuanced: The junzi (exemplary person) could follow superiors while still modeling virtue downward. Followership wasn't submission; it was integrity in a subordinate role. The Stoics went further – Epictetus was a slave who taught that inner freedom is independent of social position. Your role is external; your character is not.
Psychology
Robert Kelley's 1988 HBR research (later his book The Power of Followership) is the landmark empirical work here. He found that followers, not leaders, account for most organizational outcomes – and that effective followers share two traits: independent critical thinking and active engagement. The worst followers are passive and uncritical ("sheep"); the best are sometimes called “star followers” or “exemplary followers”. Barbara Kellerman (Followership, 2008) adds that followership is a skill set, learned and practiced, not a consolation prize.
Evolutionary / anthropological perspective
Mark van Vugt's evolutionary research argues that leadership emerged as a situational solution – small bands needed coordination, but leadership rotated based on context and expertise. The deep default is actually egalitarianism, not hierarchy. Most of human prehistory was spent actively suppressing would-be dominators (what Christopher Boehm calls "reverse dominance hierarchy"). Permanent, fixed leadership is the historical anomaly.
Military tradition
The U.S. Army's doctrine explicitly trains “subordinate initiative” – the expectation that soldiers act on commander’s intent without waiting for orders when the situation changes. This is followership as professional competence, not passivity. The Germans formalized this as Auftragstaktik (mission-type tactics) after observing Napoleonic rigidity fail.
East Asian thought
Daoism cuts against the whole frame: Laozi's ideal ruler leads so unobtrusively that people say “we did it ourselves”. The distinction between leader and follower dissolves when governance is good. In practice, this valorizes the follower's experience – the governed masses are the measure of legitimacy.
Buddhist / contemplative traditions
The sangha (community) is structurally egalitarian, though the teacher-student relationship is deeply asymmetric. But the aim of that asymmetry is eventually its own dissolution – the student outgrows the need for the teacher. Followership is developmental, not permanent.
The convergent answer across traditions:
Not everyone is meant to lead – and that framing may itself be the problem. Effective followership requires:
Moral independence (you retain ethical judgment; you don't outsource conscience)
Active competence (you execute with initiative, not passivity)
Contextual intelligence (you know when to defer and when to push back)
Relational courage (you speak difficult truths upward)
The cultures that most romanticize leadership tend to produce the worst followers – because they’ve taught people that following is failure. The more interesting question isn’t “how do I become a leader?” but “what does excellent followership look like in this role, right now?”
Question posed to Claude AI: Does America most romanticize leadership?
Response:
Yes, America is the canonical case. A few markers:
The leadership industry is essentially an American export – thousands of books, MBA curricula, executive coaching, all premised on leadership as the aspirational endpoint
“Follower” functions as a near-insult in American English; “leader” is unambiguously positive
American individualism frames hierarchy as temporary – you're a follower only until you become a leader
The biographical genre overwhelmingly focuses on founders, CEOs, generals, presidents – not the people who executed
Among others, the American case is sharpest because the romanticization is so thoroughgoing and so marketed – it's an industry. Most cultures absorb leadership mythology passively; America produces and sells it.
