Summary of leaders and followers Free Essays

Summary of â€Å"how to cultivate effective follower† April Wang English Composition I Professor Hampton October 25th, 2012 cultivate effective followers† 2 Summary of â€Å"How to In the article â€Å"How to cultivate effective followers†, the writer Christopher Lorenz identifies that followers who could not follow a parade in the past is playing a remarkable role during recent years, that is to say, since the followers are taken into fully account nowadays, they are becoming more efficient and play a key role in the many. However, the author also stressed that he was not going to have a debate with anyone who had great passion for leadership. According to the author, followers are divided into five types in this article: sheep, yes people, alienated followers, survivors, effective followers. We will write a custom essay sample on Summary of leaders and followers or any similar topic only for you Order Now In that case, some recommendations are also given to help foster efficient followers. Truly, most of the time, we do not act as a leader but a follower. Viewing that issue, Kelly, who is an industrial administration in Pittsburgh at Carnegie-Mellon University, did a research about it. Basically, it is separated in to five different sorts according to followers’ various qualities in Kelly’s study. First, sheep only do, if any, what the leaders let them do. They do not have their own opinions and depend on their leaders all the time. Yes people, obviously, are also a group of people who concern nothing but the tasks are given. Only when the leader is â€Å"blind†, this type of followers may be popular. Alienated followers are cynics–they hold their own ideas which are always the opposite of their leaders and never drop them. Survivors depend on their traders’ tempers. Their motto is â€Å"does anything that can please leaders†. Effective followers, who are probably only imaginations, are the most ideal ones. They 3 are not afraid of taking risks, for they claim that they have equal duties for their organizations. Hence, Kelly provided some strategies to us to develop more effective followers. First, the most important thing is to create a common value which can help them work toward a same goal. For example, give customers best services and make them feel at home. Second, aim for making independent and decisive followers. For instance, leaders can allow followers to speak out, which mean they can discuss strategy plans together. Third, leaders should be willing to share powers to others. At the same time, followers will have much more opportunities to make decisions. This is a beneficial way to get everyone involved. Generally speaking, followers should be paid more attention not only by leaders but also by our whole community. When talking about this, I strongly agree with him. Here are my reasons. First, evidently, in a company, only leaders can achieve nothing. Leaders and lowers hold each other tightly toward a common destination is a best way. Thus, the author evidences us some ways, which are studied by Robert E. Kelly, to make efficient followers. I also learnt it in my leadership class. An efficacious company needs appropriate followers to work with leaders actively to overcome obstacles. If the company is a manufacturer, it needs people to do a single thing day and night. Then, sheep followers are popular. Second, as we can see, in this article, Kelly (1989, Para 3) said, â€Å"What distinguishes effective followers from leaders is not intelligent, ability or any other qualities, but the role they play’. Definitely, everyone should 4 have the opportunity to take control, make decisions and give advice. They can choose someone who has a specialization on the task to help achieve the goal effectively, someone need not to be a leader, someone who are brave and responsible enough to take actions and changes. Last but not least, the time of being identified as a follower is much longer than being a leader; hence, everyone has the necessary to learn how to be both popular leaders and efficient followers. When I was a freshman, I Join the student association as a leader in one of the student groups. At the same time, I also had a leader in the whole association. I should learn how to be benign to my followers, how to get along well with my colleagues, and how to be credible to my leaders. To achieve the author’s goal, he does use some available writing styles, but not everything is so perfect. Logos is the most extraordinary style in this article. At first, he used two clear lists to introduce us the different kinds of followers and the ways to achieve effective followers. Second, his langue is terse and perspicuous. For example, â€Å"sheep are passive and uncritical, lacking in initiative and responsibility’. Only one sentence can tell the main characters of sheep. There are also some drawbacks. First and foremost, I think there should be some examples, when talking about different types of followers. It would more clearly. Moreover, from the whole essay, the author used too much Kelly’s words. It would be better to add more opinions about himself. To sum up, I forcefully believe that followers are also taking a big issue. For one thing, no matter how little the company we stayed is, followers should be regarded as 5 equal as leaders. For another, it is strongly suggested that more attention should be taken on followers, since we are more likely a follower rather than a leader in a company. In addition, here is a virtual advice. If a leader is not willing to share power with his followers, it is hard to build ideal followers-?effective followers. 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