5 Myths about Being a Follower

This article is part of the 5 Myths series.

Mistaken Beliefs about Followership

Followership, like leadership, is prone to misunderstanding. Unlike leadership, however, followership has few (if any) positive perceptions in contemporary culture. In the 1990s, David Berg conducted several training seminars on leadership and followership and reported that participants used words like “sheep,” “passive,” “obedient,” “lemming,” and “serf” to describe followers—hardly an attractive description.¹ Similarly, a recent academic literature survey says that followership stereotypes view followers as recipients or moderators of leaders’ influence (Shamir, 2007)² who dutifully carry out the orders, directives, and whims of the leader, without resistance or initiative (Kelley, 1988)³. Not surprisingly, the resultant focus has been nearly exclusively on leaders, and the vast history of research on leadership can be viewed as the study of leaders and “subordinates.”⁴

It is important that we rethink and correct our stereotypes of followership. As Christians, any particular role of following is subordinate to our highest call of following: we follow Christ (deference) through the power of the Spirit and with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength (engagement and zeal) in order to glorify God and build his kingdom (mission ownership). So for those who follow Christ, all of life’s roles and responsibilities are part of such following. It is also essential that we understand that the pervasively negative attitude we have toward deference and subordination runs afoul of biblical attitudes toward followership. Obviously, we follow Christ himself, but we also follow human leaders he has put in authority over us, including both secular rulers (Rom. 13:1) and spiritual overseers (1 Thess. 5:12–13). Our first biblical identity is one of followership—and if that notion is distasteful to us, it is likely that we have some work to do in transforming our own heart attitudes.

Let us not only leave behind simplistic stereotypes but also think more deeply about some of our more subtle and hidden misperceptions.

1. Followership Exists for the Sake of Leadership

Though followership involves deference to leadership, such followers ought not think of their lives as revolving around the leader. However, this is not always easy in a world where organizational charts are usually just leadership charts that almost intentionally ignore the co-productive nature of leadership and followership and poorly reflect the necessity for good followers. Similar problems are found in many authors who study, research, and write on followership due to the fact that they approach followership from the perspective of organizational leadership or outcomes.³ They thus focus on questions like how a leader can gain and manage a more numerous and responsive group of followers.

When followership is leader-centric, the mission of an institution, company, organization, or church recedes into the background. Leader-centric followers seek to please the leader and often end up losing themselves in their attempts to be the person they think the leader wants them to be. Instead of being leader-centric, good followership needs to be mission-centric. The follower’s first commitment is to a mission, not a leader. Convinced of an institution’s mission and committed to strive collaboratively toward achieving it, one then accepts the role of a follower within an organization that includes deference to a particular leader. The key point, however, is that this move is made because followers, leaders, and the organization as a whole share a commitment to a common mission.⁴ Mission-centric followership validates our Spirit-given giftings and fosters personal responsibility because one senses not only an organizational commitment to a particular mission but also a divine calling to that mission. In other words, the reason one joins an organization is that one sees its mission as a legitimate expression of God’s calling on one’s own life.

2. Followership Is an Unworthy Goal

Another mistaken stereotype is that followership is a temporary necessity that must be endured or, better yet, circumvented. One’s real identity is as a leader, and one must merely suffer through a season of followership as a means to the end of leadership. The tasks of a follower are simply resumé building, done only for the prospect of being rewarded with leadership opportunities, roles, and titles. But such aspirations circumvent the true significance of followership and often foster naïve arrogance that detracts from the goal of growing in Christlikeness. Ultimately, dismissive attitudes toward following compromise one’s credibility in an organization, community, or church.

The commitment to follow well is a worthy calling in and of itself, a fact that is made very clear in Scripture. A disciple (learner) of God is most fundamentally a follower—in this case, a follower of Jesus. Followers of Jesus have far-reaching impact and influence, and they do not have to become leaders in order to have such impact. As followers, we simply join in what God is doing in the world; our lives are written into his story. Finding one’s position as a leader is not nearly as important as understanding one’s place as a follower within God’s kingdom. The calling to serve as a follower does not rely on drawing attention to oneself but to the God who calls us to represent him in spheres of influence as his ambassadors as well as witnesses of his Spirit residing within.

3. Following Is Passive and Requires Few Gifts or Abilities

We’ve already identified the stereotype of followers as sheep or lemmings that lack the capacity to think for themselves or the confidence to lead others. It is worth examining this sort of thinking more carefully. There is an unstated assumption in this line of thought that followers and leaders are two different types of people. Leaders have authority, charisma, power, influence, and significance, so they set the ground rules and make important decisions. Followers don’t. Followers, in effect, are defined by what they are not: they are not leaders.⁵ It is assumed that they are not qualified or equipped to contribute significantly to a group, project, organization, or church. They are people who rubberstamp the ideas of those with greater creativity and influence.

Fortunately, thinking of followers as a particular (and deficient) kind of person is beginning to change, not only because of biblical correctives such as those we have already mentioned but also because of research done within the context of business and management.⁶ Far from the faceless masses of the subservient, good followers exhibit a remarkably high level of aptitude and depth of character—and these qualities are all the more admirable for the fact that they often go unrecognized. The competence and work ethic exhibited by followers underscore both their knowledge of an organization and their vital gifts and abilities. Good followers constitute the essential means for success in any organization, company, or church.

4. Follower Images Are Unattractive and Repugnant

One of the most pervasive metaphors for followers in the Bible is actually sheep. We tend to despise the notion of being a sheep—being a sheep is just as bad as being a lemming or a serf. However, there is simply no denying the fact that this is a metaphor the Bible uses (and uses frequently) to describe people who faithfully follow after Jesus. More troubling still is the fact that biblical imagery usually invokes aspects of being a sheep that are exactly the sorts of things that trouble us. Sheep are not just prone to follow, they need to follow because they are in some sense dependent on the shepherd. In biblical teaching, sheep consistently need a shepherd; sheep without a shepherd is always a negative image that forebodes disaster for the sheep.

Followers of Jesus have far-reaching impact and influence, and they do not have to become leaders in order to have such impact.

But this does not exhaust the way the Bible describes sheep. Though sheep need a shepherd and are meant to follow, biblical metaphors do not picture sheep as mindless followers. In fact, it is quite the opposite. John 10:5 makes it clear that the sheep follow because they recognize the voice of the shepherd, and if they hear a stranger, they will not follow but rather flee from him. So the sheep are not stupid or mindless: they will follow a voice they recognize as the good shepherd’s but refuse to follow a stranger. John goes on to note that the false voices calling to the sheep are not simply strangers (like the voices of shepherds who care for other flocks) but rather robbers and thieves—people who are intentionally trying to deceive and exploit the sheep. So the good sheep, as depicted in John 10, are what we might call “deception proof” (or, at the very least, “deception resistant”). They just plain refuse to listen to these deceptive voices (John 10:8). They are aware that one voice is trying to lead them to their own demise and destruction and the other voice is leading them to abundant life (John 10:10). So, though good sheep still need to be led, they are also very discerning about the voice they will follow.

5. Leadership Requires Training but Followership Does Not

Thousands of books on leadership are published every year. Our educational institutions in the United States offer 469 organizational leadership degree programs, a number that does not include educational or international leadership programs. Predictably, there are few books published on followership and no degree programs in followership. Whether these numbers indicate a lack of demand, a lack of theoretical or theological imagination, or simply a latent cultural expectation, it is clear that even if one wanted to train followers, it would be a lonely task.

It is likely that the underlying reason that followership training seems so counterintuitive is that we are still held captive by the stereotype of followers as sheep or lemmings. Surely it does not take any training to follow the lemming in front of you off a cliff. But as we have pointed out, this is a false stereotype—or perhaps better put, a stereotype of a bad follower rather than a good one. Could you imagine corporations making decisions about leadership training based on an ideal of bad leadership? Who needs training to shout at people and make bad decisions! Let us all agree that doing something badly doesn’t require training. The point is that both leadership and followership, when aimed at a good ideal, are activities that are important and demanding, and not many of us are fully equipped to do them well.

Conclusion

We need to cultivate a vision of followership that demands the very best of our gifts and abilities yet at the same time includes real respect and deference to our leaders. We need a vision for followership that demands our intellect, engages our emotions, and exercises our wills—because otherwise, part of us is still sitting on the sidelines. We need to be engaged with others as a committed team or, to use the biblical metaphor, as a single body where each of us is committed to the whole and therefore concerned for each part and also subordinate to the head.

This article is adapted from The Call to Follow: Hearing Jesus in a Culture Obsessed with Leadership by Richard Langer and Joanne J. Jung.

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