Global Followership Conference

Cameron and Quinn’s (2006) Competing Values Framework (CVF) offers four quadrants of organizational culture types, each ranging in their focus of external vs. internal and level of control. In this facilitated session, we will engage the audience in a robust discussion on how the four organizational culture types may attract or repel certain types of followers, centering on the followership typologies defined by Chaleff (2009) and Kellerman (2008). The outcome aims to be a greater understanding of organizational culture’s influence in how well followership types thrive in each cultural typology.

Reflect critically and sensitively on your own experiences to prevent toxic followership behaviors from arising in response to toxic leadership behaviors.

The terms Leadership and Followership are often insufficiently defined, leading to conflation and miscommunication. This session aims to explore a clearer demarcation by presenting a pracademic approach that combines a framework from practical expertise with academic research to propose a distinction of Followership from other concepts and foster reflection on this distinction with participants. Attendees will gain a unique perspective on bridging the practitioner-academic divide, with practical strategies and academic rigor contributing to a more unified understanding. Join us to advance dialogue and inspire stronger collaboration between these communities.

Followership is often framed in workplace and organizational contexts, but its impact extends far beyond professional settings. This facilitated session explores followership in deeply personal aspects of life, including healthcare, fitness, religion, and civic engagement. Participants will engage in discussions about how individuals navigate power, responsibility, and decision-making as followers in these areas. The session will examine how effective followership contributes to well-being, ethical decision-making, and social cohesion. Through interactive exercises and shared experiences, attendees will identify strategies for enhancing their followership in ways that support personal growth and community development.

As a human mode of operation, story is an essential framework and clarifying tool for followers and leaders alike. As relational connections have multiplied and digitized, and story exposure is at an all-time high, our “story intelligence” can become taxed to the point of paralysis. Participants will actively engage others in storytelling games and activities to better understand personal and collective followership by identifying as characters within stories. Through this, we aim to refine our understanding of ourselves as responsible values-actors within our communities and hone our first line of defense against being passive “watchers” in the postmodern age.