Followership im agilen Zeitalter

In management literature, the topics of leadership and management play significant roles. However, good leadership can only lead to lasting success if the individuals being led are also willing to be led and pursue the same goals as the leader with initiative and a solution-oriented mindset. This concept of "being led" is summarized under the term "followership." The rise of agile leadership and organizational concepts is increasingly displacing traditional hierarchical leadership and requires not only a contemporary, employee-oriented leadership style but also increasingly demands the competence of employees to follow leaders in a self-organized, proactive, and judicious manner towards shared goals. This competency of followership, long recognized in the USA, is still relatively in its infancy in Europe due to a stronger focus on leadership. The author first presents the close interrelationship between leadership and followership. Building on this, he outlines the organizational and personal influencing factors of good followership, the demands of the agile working world on it, and describes the possibilities and limitations of practically implementing suitable followership competencies in companies.