I would like to start with a few sentences, this is an interesting exercise. Before taking the questionnaire assessment I always thought that follower is equivalent to slave in some sense, where follower does not have a choice but must do what they are told. I thought of myself as a pushover and this type of person, but recently thinking and being critical I see things in different light, for example not every leader is right, and not every follower follows without sense. I realized my Followership Style is probably in correlation with my personality type ENFP described by the Myers Briggs, this could have been a coincidence. Being the Champion or Campaigner means my dominant function is extraverted intuition, which means that I like to try ideas out, wanting to explore new possibilities and discover, by experience, which one’s work. This also means I tend to stray from the norm and try new things to figure out different outcomes to a problem, I am not the traditional follower who accepts a solution, but also I am person who will accept a project if it seems like it will be a possibility to explore or learn, once learning is done I tend to be bored and require another outlet to showcase the creativity. With this out my results are as follows:
Independent Thinking: 54; Active Engagement: 47; Results: Exemplary Follower
The results above indicate that I am an Exemplary Follower, the definition of this is great which I can see is correlated to my personality and how I interact. The definition of this is quite the opposite to how I viewed the meaning of followers, which I think is close to my style of work. I would explore new solutions, provide outside the box thinking and, in most cases, not follow what management say if I believe that they are incorrect or there is a better way of doing things.
I believe that the followership style questionnaire is still not enough to determine one’s true style. I believe that this questionnaire should encompass or refer to the Myers Briggs personality test, to better understand. Knowing the personality can determine how one will interact and what they will do. For example, if it was an INTJ personality I believe the results will be very skewed since they think logically and with facts. Hence, I think this questionnaire alone does not represent the full picture, it is quite accurate at least for me when I took it on the first try it represented or was a close representation to my personality type.
Through this I learned that my followership style in also in correlation to my principles, which is important to note. At time I can be a pushover and accept works or projects but simultaneously I can start to push back if it does not align with my principles nor my motivation. But this made me think critically about what the role of a follower is, and I believe to me it is someone who tries to achieve organization’s success by questioning management and asking how, why, and what to determine if the approach is appropriate. If the approach is not appropriate with the right people in management, they can be spotted that something is wrong with the approach. So now I have a new view to the term’s leader, leadership, management, and follower. I believe these terms will also change in meaning the more that I think about them critically from my experience and the reading and research. This is my reflection and summarization after undergoing this questionnaire and the reading.
Adventures in Life 