Followership Blog

           

This week we discussed followership and the different kinds of followers there are: isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards. There are two types of followers that really stood out to me: bystanders and activists. Bystanders are people who observe but don’t participate. They go along with the status quo and don’t stand up and fight for anything; they blend into the background of the organization. Bystanders are people who watch a crime being committed but stand and don’t do anything to stop it because they are waiting for the person next to them to do something. Bystanders can also be seen in clubs and organizations as the people that just show up at events, but don’t take part in anything. Sometimes I find myself acting as a bystander when it comes one of the club I am in, I receive all the emails about events, but never find the time to go to any events or meetings. Bystanders also remind me of my students who will just sit in class and not do anything, but listen occasionally. Activists are followers who are very much into their organization and their role. They work very hard on behalf of their leaders and organizations. Activists take charge and get things done. Activists are loyal and trusted allies of organizations. An activist is someone who is not the leader, but works with the leader to make sure things get done.  I consider myself an activist when it comes to my mock trial club, where I find myself working closely with my team leaders to get things done and sometimes go beyond my role to help out my club. Even at work I can be considered an activist because I sometimes end up doing the teacher’s job of instructing the students on how to do their class work; I answer questions that the teacher should have covered in lecture. We also discussed two different sides of a debate. The first side was all about survival of the fittest and everyone should strive to be a leader. The other side was there are too many cooks in the kitchen and everyone should strive to be a good follower. Both sides make good points. It is nice to have more leaders who can help lead the followers like in a orchestra where there are section leaders to make sure no one messes up. It’s also good to have followers to carry out the task of the leaders, because without followers nothing would get done. In my experiences at work I find that it’s good to have more teachers in the classroom because children need more individual attention sometimes to learn. There are also cases where it’s good to have more members in a club if you want to get more things done. For example in my mock trial club we need more members if we want to compete against other schools.