Follower Responses to Leadership

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In a previous article I looked at the relationship between Influence, Power and Authority. Since these three things are some of the biggest reasons why someone would follow us as leaders, it’s important for us to understand how our use of influence, power and authority creates different responses from our followers.

There are three responses or consequences that we can get from followers when we try to exercise control over their actions: commitment, compliance and resistance. These responses happen along a continuum and it’s best to look at them this way.

Commitment

Much has been written about leadership that results in us having committed followers. Committed followers have made a conscious decision to accept us as the leader, our vision, and the things we are asking them to do to meet our vision and goals. When we have commitment from our followers everything seems easier. We all (or nearly all) tend to be on the same page and things just seem to move forward, sometimes almost effortlessly.

Committed followers tend to be more motivated, particularly by intrinsic rewards, and will many times continue to find ways on their own to move towards the vision. When we have committed followers we tend to see higher performance and higher quality. These are followers who do what we ask because they want to do it.

Compliance

Sometimes when we use our influence, power and authority to get our followers to do something, the best we can get from them is compliance. They are only doing what we ask because they feel they have to do it, not necessarily because they want to do it. When we have followers that are simply complying, it is usually because of the two-sided coin of reward and punishment. They are doing what is asked because we, as their supervisor, have the ability to reward them (with money, time off, accolades) and/or punish them (with termination, for instance).

Only getting compliance from our followers usually will still allow us to move forward towards realizing a vision or goal, but when compared with committed followers, the going will be slower and not as smooth. Compliant followers tend to be those folks that put in their eight hours and go home, never going above and beyond for the benefit of the organization.

Resistance

When we try to get folks to do what we want through demands and throwing our weight around because of our position and the authority that we have, one of the consequences can be out-and-out resistance. The more we rely on this kind of behavior to get us what we want, the more followers will begin to get fed up and eventually start resisting us. This resistance could come in the passive form of just not doing what we want or doing it poorly. It could also come in the form of open hostility and challenging us at ever turn.

In terms of leading organizations, having resistance from our followers tends to move the organization backwards or at best keep it standing still. We are unable to move our organizations forward if our followers are resisting us. In fact, the longer we go with followers resisting the greater the likelihood that they will just stop following us altogether and without followers, by definition we are no longer leaders.

The fascinating thing about followers is that since they are all individuals, they each have different needs and motivations. When we do the things we need to do in order to have committed followers, generally many will be committed. But because we can’t be all things to all people all the time even our best efforts may result in some followers who are only being compliant. Unfortunately there may also be others who for their own reasons will still be resistant, no matter what we do.

Even though our individual followers will respond in their individual ways, we still have the ability to influence the actions of the majority of our followers based on how we use our influence, power and authority. In a following post I take a look at our sources of power and how these sources relate to the response we get from our followers.

Leader’s Reflection: As leaders, our efforts to exercise control over followers can result in commitment, compliance or resistance. It’s important for us to understand how our use of influence, power and authority creates these very different responses from our followers.

You also might be interested in:

1. Sources of Power
2. Influence, Power and Authority
3. Should Leaders Focus on Each Individual Follower?
4. What is Follower Reflection?
5. Understanding “Us” and “Them” in Organizations