Followers Can Fix the Damage of Leadership Incompetence

IDEAS LIBRARY IDEAS BY INSTITUTIONS IDEAS BY AUTHOR

Idea #854

Followers Can Fix the Damage of Leadership Incompetence

This is one of our free-to-access content pieces. To gain access to all Ideas for Leaders content please Log In Here or if you are not already a Subscriber then Subscribe Here.

Statue of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza in Brussels (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

KEY CONCEPT

Restorative behavior by followers can restore damaged relationships and lost value caused by leadership incompetence.

IDEA SUMMARY

Leadership involves a dynamic relationship between leader and follower to which both parties contribute. The study of “followership,” focuses on the vital role that followers play in the leader-follower relationship and, consequently, the role that followers play in the success of the organization. For example, poor followership, such as blindly following an incompetent or unethical leader, can be as damaging to an organization as poor leadership.

Two scholars of African leadership and followership offer a unique perspective on the role of followership when dealing with “bad” leaders a perspective based on the concept of restorative behavior.

Restorative behavior refers to the actions and reactions of followers attempting to restore relationships whose values have been damaged by the negative actions of their leaders. Effective relationships between an organizational leader and his or her followers lead to value creation for the organization; this value is lost when the relationship is undermined by the leader.

The research of Baniyelme Zoogah of Xavier University’s Williams College of Business and James Abugre of the University of Ghana Business School focused on poor leadership in terms of incompetence, defined as the inability to influence followers through effective communication and engagement. Specifically, incompetent leaders fail to involve followers in decision-making, fail to communicate with transparency and fail to ask for information or to act on information and suggestions offered by followers.

Through a series of surveys conducted with groups and dyads of supervisors and followers, Zoogah and Abugre found that:

Incompetent leadership induced followers to undertake restorative behaviors to undo the harm of the incompetence restorative behaviors included discerning the causes and outcomes of the leader’s incompetence; a willingness to hold the leader accountable; a willingness to express concerns to the leader; and, finally, taking actions to restore the value of the relationship, including offering potential solutions to improve communication and participative decision-making.

Whether followers enacted restorative behaviors was linked to some extent to whether the followers were actively engaged that is, whether they cared about and were invested in the relationship with their leaders and the value that emanated from those relationships. The research suggested that leader incompetence would push followers to become more actively engaged.

At the same time, the research showed that follower-leader value fit that is, how closely the values of the leaders were aligned with the values of the followers acted as a substitute for active engagement in spurring followers to action. In other words, when the leader-follower value fit was high, active engagement was less important in prompting followers to take action. However, when the leader-follower fit was low, high active engagement was key to followers taking the initiative to engage in restorative behaviors.

Finally, in general, the research shows that restorative behavior led to restorative value in other words, the value created out of the relationship between the leaders and followers could be restored. To the surprise of the researchers, however, discernment, accountability, and voice did not have the same impact on restorative value as restorative repair.

BUSINESS APPLICATION

This research was based in Africa, which at the national level has a history of restorative behaviour in response to leadership incompetence or malfeasance. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa may be the most famous example of the application of restorative behaviour, but it is not the only one.

This research reveals the effectiveness of restorative behaviour at the organisational level and implies certain steps organisations can take to encourage restorative behaviour by followers, including:

Giving followers the psychological safety to engage in restorative behaviour.
Ensuring that there is a value fit between leaders and their followers.
Encouraging a community of healing by helping leaders and followers to interact when leadership behaviour has damaged their relationships. This community of healing should be based on a “respect for all” culture that focuses on harms and needs, addresses obligations, and promotes collaboration and inclusiveness.
Inducing the active engagement of followers with systems and processes that enable this engagement.

REFERENCES

Restorative followership in Africa: Antecedents, moderators, and consequences. Baniyelme D. Zoogah and James B. Abugre. Africa Journal of Management (July 2020).

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23322373.2020.1777818

Ideas for Leaders is a free-to-access site. If you enjoy our content and find it valuable, please consider subscribing to our Developing Leaders Quarterly publication, this presents academic, business and consultant perspectives on leadership issues in a beautifully produced, small volume delivered to your desk four times a year.

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Idea conceived

July 3, 2020

Idea posted

Jun 2023

Subject

Interpersonal Skills

Leadership

Senior Leaders

Team Building and Teamwork

Can't find the Idea you are after?

Then 'Challenge Us' to source it.

SUBSCRIBE TO IDEAS FOR LEADERS AND ACCESS ALL OUR IDEAS, PODCASTS, WEBINARS AND RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE EVENT INVITATIONS.

For the less than the price of a coffee a week you can read over 650 summaries of research that cost universities over $1 billion to produce.

Use our Ideas to:

Catalyse conversations with mentors, mentees, peers and colleagues.
Keep program participants engaged with leadership thinking when they return to their workplace.
Create a common language amongst your colleagues on leadership and management practice
Keep up-to-date with the latest thought-leadership from the world’s leading business schools.
Drill-down on the original research or even contact the researchers directly

Speak to us on how else you can leverage this content to benefit your organization. info@ideasforleaders.com