Manager as a Valued Leader and a Valued Follower: Making Managerial Work More Meaningful

Organizations are skewed towards acknowledging success as coming from leaders. This over- emphasis on leadership can cast a shadow on organizational work that is not associated with leading, but with following. To make managerial work more meaningful for those doing it, it is important to acknowledge managers not just for their capacity to be leaders, but also for their capacity to be followers. Often it is poor followership, like following an unethical boss or not speaking up in case of risk that causes organizations to behave in ways that are not meaningful, but destructive, for society (see BP Gulf of Mexico incident; VW recent emission scandals; 2008 Financial Crisis, etc.). How managers deal with being in the simultaneous role of a leader and a follower remains unexplored, however. The present symposium proposes to explore this phenomenon from different viewpoints: a discursive perspective, a critical identity perspective, an OB traditional role-based one, and also from a leadership-as-practice angle.