To receive an additional 5 points for the Week 5 Psychology of Leadership Discussion Forum, students must complete the “Northouse Leadership and Followership Questionnaire” and report on the results in this Discussion Forum by Friday midnight.
QUESTIONAIRE
326 Leadership Theory and Practice
LEADERSHIP INSTRUMENT _________________________
As discussed earlier in this chapter, Kelley (1992) developed a typology that
categorized followers into one of five styles (exemplary, alienated, conformist, passive, and pragmatist) based on two axes (independent thinking and
active engagement). These different dimensions of followership became the
basis for Kelley’s Followership Questionnaire, a survey that allows followership style to be determined through an empirical approach, rather than
through observation.
Followership Questionnaire
Instructions: Think of a specific leader–follower situation where you were in
the role of follower. For each statement, please use the scale below to indicate the extent to which the statement describes you and your behavior in
this situation.
1. Does your work help you fulfill some societal goal or
personal dream that is important to you?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
2. Are your personal work goals aligned with the
organization’s priority goals?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
3. Are you highly committed to and energized by
your work and organization, giving them your
best ideas and performance?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
4. Does your enthusiasm also spread to and energize your
coworkers?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
5. Instead of waiting for or merely accepting what the
leader tells you, do you personally identify which
organizational activities are most critical for achieving
the organization’s priority goals?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
6. Do you actively develop a distinctive competence in those
critical activities so that you become more valuable to the
leader and the organization?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Key:
Rarely Occasionally Almost
Always
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Chapter 12 Followership 327
7. When starting a new job or assignment, do you promptly
build a record of successes in tasks that are important to
the leader?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
8. Can the leader give you a difficult assignment without
the benefit of much supervision, knowing that you will
meet your deadline with highest-quality work and
that you will “fill in the cracks” if need be?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
9. Do you take the initiative to seek out and successfully
complete assignments that go above and beyond your job?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
10. When you are not the leader of a group project, do
you still contribute at a high level, often doing more
than your share?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
11. Do you independently think up and champion new ideas
that will contribute significantly to the leader’s or the
organization’s goals?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
12. Do you try to solve the tough problems (technical or
organizational), rather than look to the leader to do it for you?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
13. Do you help out other coworkers, making them look good,
even when you don’t get any credit?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
14. Do you help the leader or group see both the upside
potential and downside risks of ideas or plans, playing the
devil’s advocate if need be?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
15. Do you understand the leader’s needs, goals, and
constraints, and work hard to help meet them?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
16. Do you actively and honestly own up to your strengths and
weaknesses rather than put off evaluation?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
17. Do you make a habit of internally questioning the
wisdom of the leader’s decision rather than just doing
what you are told?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
18. When the leader asks you to do something that runs
contrary to your professional or personal preferences,
do you say “no” rather than “yes”?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
19. Do you act on your own ethical standards rather than the
leader’s or the group’s standards?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
20. Do you assert your views on important issues, even though it
might mean conflict with your group or reprisals from the leader?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
SOURCE: Excerpts from The Power of Followership by Robert E. Kelly, copyright © 1992 by
Consultants to Executives and Organizations, Ltd. Used by permission of Doubleday, an
imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House
LLC. All rights reserved.
328 Leadership Theory and Practice
Scoring
The Followership Questionnaire measures your style as a follower based on
two dimensions of followership: independent thinking and active engagement. Your responses indicate the degree to which you are an independent
thinker and actively engaged in your follower role. Score the questionnaire
by doing the following. Your scores will classify you as being primarily one of
the five styles: exemplary, alienated, conformist, pragmatist, or passive.
1. Independent Thinking Score: Sum of questions 1, 5, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18,
19, and 20
2. Active Engagement Score: Sum of questions 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13,
and 15
• Exemplary Followership Style: If you scored high (above 40) on both independent
thinking and active engagement, your followership style is categorized as exemplary.
• Alienated Followership Style: If you scored high (above 40) on independent thinking and
low (below 20) on active engagement, your followership style is categorized as alienated.
• Conformist Followership Style: If you scored low (below 20) on independent thinking and
high (above 40) on active engagement, your followership style is categorized as conformist.
• Pragmatist Followership Style: If you scored in the middle range (from 20 to 40) on both
independent thinking and active engagement, your followership style is categorized as
pragmatist.
• Passive Followership Style: If you scored low (below 20) on both independent thinking
and active engagement, your followership style is categorized as passive.
Followership Style Independent Thinking Score Active Engagement Score
EXEMPLARY High High
ALIENATED High Low
CONFORMIST Low High
PRAGMATIST Middling Middling
PASSIVE Low Low
SOURCE: Adapted from The Power of Followership (pp. 89–98), by R. E. Kelley, 1992, New
York, NY: Doubleday Business. Adapted with permission.
Scoring Interpretation
What do the different styles mean? How should you interpret your style? The
followership styles characterize how you carry out the followership role, not
who you are as a person. At any point in time, or under different circumstances, you may use one followership pattern rather than another.
Chapter 12 Followership 329
Exemplary Follower
Exemplary followers score high in both independent thinking and active engagement. They exhibit independent, critical thinking, separate from the group or
leader. They are actively engaged, using their talents for the benefit of the
organization, even when confronted with bureaucracy or other noncontributing
members. Up to 35% of people are categorized as exemplary followers.
Alienated Follower
Alienated followers score high in independent thinking but low in active engagement. This means that they think independently and critically, but are not active
in carrying out the role of a follower. They might disengage from the group at
times and may view themselves as victims who have received unfair treatment.
Approximately 15%–25% of people are categorized as alienated followers.
Conformist Follower
Conformist followers often say “yes” when they really want to say “no.” Low
in independent thinking and high in active engagement, they willingly take
orders and are eager to please others. They believe that the leader’s position
of power entitles the leader to followers’ obedience. They do not question
the social order and find comfort in structure. Approximately 20%–30% of
people are categorized as conformist followers.
Pragmatist Follower
With independent thinking and active engagement styles that fall between
high and low, pragmatic followers are most comfortable in the middle of the
road and tend to adhere to a motto of “better safe than sorry.” They will
question a leader’s decisions, but not too often or too openly. They perform
required tasks, but seldom do more than is asked or expected. Approximately
25%–35% of people are categorized as pragmatist followers.
Passive Follower
With low independent thinking and low active engagement behaviors, passive followers are the opposite of exemplary followers, looking to the leader
to do their thinking for them. They do not carry out their assignments with
enthusiasm and lack initiative and a sense of responsibility. Approximately
5%–10% of people are categorized as passive followers.
SOURCE: Based on excerpts from The Power or Followership by Robert E. Kelly, copyright ©
1992 by Consultants to Executives and Organizations, Ltd. Used by permission of
Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin
Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
