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Portrait of Mats Alvesson. Photo.

Mats Alvesson

Professor

Portrait of Mats Alvesson. Photo.

When ‘Good’ Leadership Backfires : Dynamics of the leader/follower relation

Author

  • Katja Einola
  • Mats Alvesson

Summary, in English

This paper contributes to the understanding of relational aspects of leadership and followership. Our in-depth empirical study of the leader/follower relation uncovers how and why assigning team members into ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ positions may sometimes be a double-edged sword and lead to unintended consequences undermining both the team’s potential and member satisfaction. We report on a multi-voiced story of one team that at first looked like a well-performing one with effective, ‘good’ leadership and satisfied team members. However, a closer investigation revealed frictional understandings, unresponsiveness and dynamics of immaturization as the followers overly relied on the elected leader. Leadership seen as ‘good’ may indeed backfire and encourage satisfied, trustful followers to relax and focus on limited roles. Our study further shows the need to conduct rich empirical studies that capture views of all parties in a relation.

Department/s

  • Organizational Studies

Publishing year

2021-06-01

Language

English

Pages

845-865

Publication/Series

Organization Studies

Volume

42

Issue

6

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • followership
  • immaturization
  • leadership
  • process study
  • relational leadership
  • shared meanings
  • teams

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0170-8406