The Power of Followership

When to step back to move forward

July 8, 2025

Business books and corporate training programs are full of messages about we, as individuals and as teams, can add value. This often means speaking up in meetings, asserting our skills and leveraging opportunities to lead. These are foundational elements of a robust and long career trajectory. Showing initiative, motivating coworkers and delivering results are all important to success.

But sometimes, it’s the counterintuitive notions that can really help you build the right skills for the future. Sometimes these overlooked methods are just what you need to fast-track your growth. Sometimes, the best move you can make is not to grab the reins and show your dominance. It’s quite possible that the best move is to take a step back and follow.

That’s right, knowing how to follow is a critical step to becoming a great leader.

We all know about Great Leadership. It is at the heart of most business, self-help, management and executive presence content. But what about Great Followership? Followership is not the opposite of leadership. It can be argued that followership is the foundation of leadership. All great leaders were once great followers. They used those followership opportunities to observe, act on advice, listen and support.

Is this idea new to you? We’ll dive into what it really means to learn how to follow, when to put yourself into this role and why it could lead to bigger and better career opportunities for you.

What Is Followership?

The basis of followership is supporting a leader (and team) to achieve a shared goal. Good followership is intentional. The best followers know their roles and expected contributions to the leaders desired outcome. Good followership requires understanding, judgement and collaboration. It’s not about blind agreement and just obeying orders. Followership is doing your part in delivering on the leader’s vision and realizing the shared objective.

Followership is bringing your best efforts to the team and optimizing your skills and experiences while recognizing that someone else is in charge, at least for the time being.

Why is Followership Important?

Peers, management and social media put pressure on us: pressure to lead, influence, achieve results. We work in high-performing environments, and we see our friends and coworkers making career changes and getting promoted. While we have our own ambitions, it’s also helpful to stop and think about the right time to lead and the right time to follow. The ability to make this distinction can separate good leaders from great ones.

Here are the top 3 reasons followership is so valuable:

1. Followership Deepens Perspective

If we only take opportunities to lead, our focus remains on directing the work of others and keeping the project or deliverable on track. We may not be thinking about the people working with us or who is on the other end of our instructions.

In a follower role, you’re experiencing how it feels to be led. You see what is motivating you, what causes your stress and how you understand the shared goal. Being on the receiving end of a leader’s decisions, directions and communications gives you a perspective you can only get by being a follower. This experiential learning will help you in the future by building the positives and avoiding the negatives.

Later, when you change roles into a leadership position, you’ll draw from the experience of having been in followers’ shoes.

2. Followership Builds Trust

Being a strong follower who listens, offers constructive ideas, and contributes quality work allows you to be viewed as a great team contributor. Your ability to deliver builds trust with your teammates, and you will become known as a reliable, aware and effective colleague.

When your coworkers see your level of commitment and results, it makes it easier for them to see you in a potential leadership role down the road. And when your management sees how you’re building trust with colleagues, they’ll see the future leader in you as well.

3. Followership Strengthens Self-Awareness

When you’re in a followership role and you’re successfully resisting the urge to lead, you are strengthening your emotional intelligence muscles.

Some eager and ambitious professionals focus only on opportunities to grab the spotlight. They think that being control will increase their visibility and taking credit will make management take notice. They rarely step back to understand the perspective of their close collaborators.

When you embrace followership, you immediately signal self-awareness. You know it’s not your turn to lead, but rather it’s time to observe, perform, reflect and learn. Strong self-awareness can prepare you for future situations when you will have to “read the room” and react with restraint.

When Do I Need to Embrace Followership?

There are times to lead, and there are times to follow. Here are a few scenarios when stepping back and embracing followership might be your smartest move:

You’re in a new role or team. If you’re on a new team as an individual contributor (not in a managerial role), take time to understand the culture, priorities, and interpersonal dynamics of the group. Work to fit into the workflow and become one of the team.

Someone else has been designated as leader. You may be on a team where you think you would do a better job leading. You feel stuck or team progress has slowed. If there is an assigned leader, it is better to let them lead. Work to support their leadership and contribute to the best of your abilities, offering constructive input to help achieve the teams’ goals.

You’re too stretched. There are situations where your technical skills and experiences are being pushed to the limits and you’re asked to learn about unfamiliar areas or untested skills. You may be applying new analytical techniques, working with a new client or learning about a new market. Recognizing when your leader has more expertise is a great opportunity to learn from them…by following.

There are significant pressures on the team. Pressures on the team can come from high risk, high sensitivity or high potential reward situations. In these situations, team unity and clarity of leadership is critically important. Having team members who are ready to come together and rally around a common objective helps leaders and followers be successful.

Call to Action: Practice Great Followership

When you’re in a situation where you’re not the leader, and you’re ready to follow, try this:

Step 1: Listen with Intent

Your team has a goal. You have a goal. It’s time to really listen to the leader and to your collaborators. Understand the direction your leader is setting, their reasoning, and how your contributions fit into the larger picture. Try to see the pressures your leader is under, and how you can help alleviate them. Think about what the team is setting out to achieve and how you can help them get there.

Bonus: You can learn so much by observing the decisions and communication styles of those leading you. Make a note of what is working well, and how you feel about how you are being led.

Step 2: Ask Thoughtful Questions

Engage thoughtfully in your part of the project and focus on your deliverables. Think critically about what you are contributing and how it aligns to the overall goal. If necessary, ask questions to clarify objectives, surface risks, and explore constructive alternatives. You don’t have to play devil’s advocate just to look smart. You might ask questions like:

“Is there more I can do to help achieve the bigger goal?”
“How can my past experience save us time or effort in this step?”
“Where do you see the biggest risks, and how can I support in managing them?”

Bonus: You can also act as role model for your peers with thoughtful, constructive questions so the entire team engages productively.

Step 3: Execute with Excellence

Once you understand the overall objectives and your part in accomplishing them, it’s time to execute. You’ll set out to deliver high quality work and collaborate well with your teammates. Engage your leader along the way and offer proactive updates, including any cases when you identify potential risks or see the project going off track.

You’ll be building your reputation as someone who delivers and works well with others without having to be the center of attention.

Bonus: While you are learning from you leader, look for opportunities to learn from your peers also. You may be working with someone who also has advanced followership skills and can use them as an example to further hone your own skills. It’s also possible to learn from a colleague who is not following well. You’ll be able to adjust what you’re doing by not emulating their example.

Convert Your Followership into Leadership

Your time to put your followership skills to the test in a leadership role will come. And when it does, you’ll be ready. In the meantime, continue to practice your followership skills and learn from the leaders around you. Don’t view followership as a setback or a less important role. In the arc of your career, these are foundational experiences that help you realize that everyone’s contributions are required to achieve success.

You’ll not only understand the importance of following well, but you’ll have experienced it yourself. You’ll be ready for your time to lead, and people will want to follow you.