Natural Followership vs. Followership

The questions we ask ourselves determine the answers we get. This may seem obvious, but we rarely pay attention to it. When I first started exploring followership, I had one objective in mind: to understand what makes people want to follow someone else.

I initially phrased the question like this: What makes me want to follow someone else? I figured that if I could explain my own reasons for following somebody, it would be a first step toward understanding why others do the same.

In hindsight, I realize that if I had phrased my question just a little differently, the outcome of my work might have been completely different.

Consider these two questions:

1. What makes me want to follow a leader?
2. What makes me want to follow someone else?

To answer the first question—why we want to follow a leader—we need to know what a leader is. This tends to narrow our field of view because most of us already have a preconceived notion of leadership.

The second question is different. It doesn’t assume we’re following a leader. It simply acknowledges that there are moments when we follow other people. That distinction proved critical in uncovering the concept of natural followership.

Followership with a Leader Perspective?

When I started exploring natural followership in the early 2000s, the idea got about as much respect as a talking-cat video on Facebook. People were curious, but they weren’t taking it seriously.

Today, the interest in followership is on the rise. Next year, the fourth global followership conference will be held in Los Angeles. There will be people from all over the world, which is amazing. I hope to see you there, by the way!

In short, the leadership community can no longer ignore followership. But here’s the catch: When leadership experts turn their attention to followership, they tend to do so with a leader-centric mindset. They generally ask: What makes people follow a leader? or How should people follow leaders? They then interpret what they see from a traditional leadership perspective. After all, they already have a preconceived definition of a leader

Natural Followership vs. Traditional Followership

When exploring natural followership, we don’t assume that followers are subordinates. Nor do we assume that followers obey orders. Instead, we look at how people naturally collaborate and follow each other in non-hierarchical environments.

For most of human history, our ancestors appear to have lived in small, egalitarian groups. Studying these societies gives us a window into how people lead and follow when there’s no hierarchy involved.

Another example is how a group of friends makes decisions. Although there are no bosses or CEOs, friends still manage to solve a wide variety of problems or challenges together. They do this by building what I’ve come to call collaborationship through the process of natural followership.

I explain this in more detail in my coming book, Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership. But in a nutshell, natural followership explains how we humans naturally follow one another to achieve shared goals. Compare this to traditional followership, which tends to focus on how people act (or are expected to act) when they’re in subordinate roles.

Why Does This Matter?

While I’m thrilled to see followership gaining traction worldwide, I’m also worried.

If we’re not careful, the followership could end up as just another branch of the leadership tree. If we keep assuming followers are subordinates, that managers are supposed to be leaders, and that learning followership is just a way to improve management skills, then we’re missing the point.

To make followership truly valuable, we need to go beyond the boundaries of traditional leadership thinking. We need to ask bold questions like:

• What if the way we organize businesses and societies actually stifles real followership?
• What if everything we thought we knew about leadership and followership is wrong?
• What if there’s a better way to collaborate than having a so-called “formal leader”?

The answers to these and similar questions could change everything. I’m just not sure the leadership and followership community is ready to take that leap.

Please check out the 2025 Global Followership Conference at https://www.followershipconference.com

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