Is Leadership Over Glorified

The biggest challenge of our time is the over glorification of leadership. You have heard me, right! Two weeks ago, I met with a colleague who asked me why, in the past two months, I had not sent through a leadership insight article. The period beginning August exposed me to a side of leadership that is less talked about-followership.

It is now common knowledge that most cultures do not hold followers in high regard; in fact, we have an addiction to glorifying leaders. At first, the glorification of leadership was an American problem, but the reality is that even in Africa and other regions, leadership is revered and worshiped. This perception is undoubtedly the root of leadership failures, business scandals, unethical practices, and declining morals. Even with systems in place, leadership failure is evident. The question one would ask is, how did we come to this place?

The scientific formula H2O represents water. If we separate hydrogen or oxygen from the formula, the result is not water. It doesn't matter how much focus has been given to understand leadership; the equation is not complete without followership. Often people talk about leadership omitting followership but forgetting that there is no leadership without followers. This reminds me of my late dad’s favorite saying, “Followers are the perfect reflection of one’s leadership.” We need to embrace the new reality that “intellectual capital, brainpower, know-how, human imagination has supplanted capital as the critical success factor" (Bennis), and leaders need an entirely new set of skills to nurture and tap into the human capital/followers.

As research on the role of followers in the leadership process is gaining traction, Chalef highlights that followership is equally crucial as leadership. Thus, leaders should nurture their relationship with their immediate followers, taking cognizance of the fact that new followers emulate followers, not the leader.

Therefore, followers are leaders too.

This demystification of leadership is what is needed to bring back sanity in the leadership process.

Author: Naomi Chitambira