Discussion: Followship

Do you think of yourself as a leader, a follower, or some of both? Why?
Leading is *work* that I don't always want to do, but, I have found myself in that position more than once.

What do you consider the personal qualities of a good follower?
-- Thoughtfulness, commitment

What are some of the skills of a good follower?
-- The ability to listen, the ability to take direction well are very useful. Most importantly? The willingness to *question*. This does *not* mean arguing at every opportunity. It does mean thinking about what's going on.

Can followship be taught or learned, or is it innate?
I believe this is a spectrum, and, I believe it can be learned. If you select a random group of people and give them a task to complete, without fail, a leader will emerge. Whether the person is the most opinionated, most confident, or just most organized, it will happen.
Since many of the qualities that make a good follower also make for a good leader or just a cooperative individual, I believe they can be learned. Some will just take to them more readily than others.

Do followers deserve respect? Why or why not?
Of course they deserve respect. I think there's occasionally frustration when people are what I would consider *blind* followers. That doesn't mean that following is bad. Leadership is stressful and not everyone *wants* to be a leader. Likewise, not everyone *can* be a leader. We'd never get anything done.

How does the wider Pagan community view followers?
I'm pretty outside the wider Pagan community at this point. However, most people find it uncomfortable to step outside of our comfort zones. People who decide to become Pagans are often people who rail against being told to be a follower. Hense the "herding cats" problem. (Using the term "problem" very loosely.)

What does it mean for a follower to bestow their service on a leader?
You raise an interesting question that I have not thought through before. I'll think on this one more and get back to you.

I tend to see leadership as having an implicit contract. The difficult part is that people can find themselves leading without having consciously volunteered for it.

So... if a follower "bestows" their service on a leader, to me there's an inherent contract of trust. The leader has the additional hands to accomplish a goal while the follower trusts the leader to be honest in his/her goals, aims and intentions. This is part of the reason that violations of that kind of trust are (and should be) taken so seriously.