Leadership
Leadership psychology is an emerging cross-disciplinary field. It integrates the study and practice of leadership and organizational systems with the fundamentals of human psychology to create a 21st Century approach to leadership. This approach teaches leaders the skills and perspectives necessary to meet the local and global challenges of a networked world. Leadership psychology emphasizes the need to understand individual and group behaviors as a complex system in order to achieve positive and long lasting change. It recognizes the need to train leaders who are able to create adaptive rather than superficial change, drawing on Ronald Heifetz's work on adaptive leadership and the tenets of positive psychology.
Contents
Therefore, 21st Century Leadership is defined as the art of influencing followers to achieve success by identifying joint goals, finding best-fit roles in teams, collaborating constructively and dynamically, and adapting to change within their environments.
Although people may recognize the need for change, it is often difficult to move people, and therefore organizations and institutions, out of familiar behaviors, models and beliefs. This demands an adaptive approach to leadership. For example, William James College has created the first Leadership Psychology doctoral program in the U.S. to understand leadership, followership, and to deploy the best research and practice to address challenges in for profit, non-profit, higher education, healthcare, and government domains.
Followership
Leaders do not exist without followers. Together they form a reciprocal relationship within a group and the success of a group depends on the actions of both those who lead and those who follow. Robert E. Kelley developed a theory of followers that is discussed by Donelson R Forsyth in his book Group Dynamics as a key component of leadership. Kelley identifies followers as either passive or active and as either dependent or independent. Based on the various combinations of characterizations, he then classifies them into five basic types of followers: Conformist; Passive; Alienated; Exemplary; and Pragmatic.
Conformist
Conformist followers are people who can be deferential to the point of being servile. Characterized as dependant and active, they devote themselves to their leader unquestioningly and are unwavering in their support of their leader.
Passive
Passive followers are likened to sheep who do only what they are told and no more. Characterized as dependant and passive, they are neither committed nor enthusiastic. They are content to follow the lead of others.
Alienated
Alienated followers are cynical group members who acquiesce publicly while silently they are critical and disgruntled Characterized as independent and passive, they lack commitment to the leader, the group and the common goals of the group and other group members.
Exemplary
Exemplary followers are effective followers who often take initiative and risks to independently resolve problems. Characterized as independent and active, they are able to be constructive when they dissent with the leader or the group and can be depended on to complete delegated tasks making them star followers. Exemplary followers are seen as the best kind of followers a leader can have and Kelly indicates that a leader is tasked with transforming the various types of followers into the exemplary type of follower.
Pragmatic
The pragmatic followers are identified as survivors and are located at the center of Kelley's follower grid. This type of follower is characterized by their lack of characteristics on either end of the dependent/independent and active/passive spectrums. They are the background followers who contribute what they can when they can. While they do not possess any of the negative traits of the conformist, passive or alienated followers, they are not exemplary followers either. They are simply the rank-and-file members of the group.