What Makes a Good Follower

A friend of mine asked me some questions about leadership for one of
his classes, and I was happy to oblige with my thoughts on the
subject. I told him I consider the key role of a leader to clarify
for others what direction the organization is going, what their role
is in helping make that happen, and what the leader can do to help
them do that job of theirs. I took this role seriously at my last job
and tried to fulfill it every day.

But it occurs to me that while I've given leadership a great deal of
thought, what would I say is the key role of the follower? It's not a
hypothetical question for me, for I'm likely transitioning from being
a relatively big fish in a relatively small pond to being a relatively
small fish in a relatively big pond. So I'll be playing the role of
follower much more often than that of leader. And what is that role?

I hope that my experience in leadership can be beneficial to my
approach to followership. In my opinion, a good follower helps his
leader be a good leader. I can do that in three ways: by doing my job
effectively, by supplying my leader with information and access so he
or she can help me do my job effectively, and by working with my
leader to constantly refine my job so that it better contributes to
the overall direction of the organization.

So that's my take on followership. I would also commend Useem's
Leading Up and Bradford's Influence Without Authority as two good
books on the subject.