CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
Leadership is 6.5 percent of the Air Force Professional Development Guide while followership is five percent of the leadership chapter.
This is strange to me because most of us spend a vast majority of our career as followers. What I mean to say is everyone spends part of their day following and another part leading.
For example, a noncommissioned officer in charge may fill the role of a leader when dealing with subordinates, but not when dealing with the superintendent. In turn, a superintendent who refuses to respond to his or her peers will soon run into problems with the chief master sergeant. Therefore, no one leads all of the time. In fact, I'd say I spend a larger amount of my time than anything else as a first sergeant talking about followership.
Air Force Instruction 36-2618, The Enlisted Force Structure, states that it is a general responsibility of all Airmen to be effective followers by completing assigned tasks and accomplishing the mission. The goal of followership in the AFI is to clearly define the specific responsibility of all Airmen to put the needs of their official duties ahead of their personal desires. For example, everyone knows that the physical training standard has changed. Even though Airmen get duty time to do PT, it is not always enough to pass the test. I've heard every excuse from "I don't like to sweat" to "I can't make time for it because of college classes." The bottom line is good followership may mean that you sweat more or you adjust your classes to allow more time for PT.
Most discussions of followership revolve around the qualities of a good follower. The most common qualities listed from these varying sources are: the ability to see the big picture, the ability to strive for personal goals while contributing to the organization, taking responsibility for their own careers and having the confidence to do the right thing when it is easier not to.
I believe the reason we list the qualities of followership when we discuss it, rather than define it, is because these are also the qualities that are found in good leaders. In fact, creating an environment in which Airmen can become committed followers requires real effort. These qualities require Airmen to own their own success, but this can't happen without leadership being willing to communicate openly so both the leader and follower know each others' goals and work toward them as a team.
This is often where I come in ... I get to assist Airmen at all levels in communicating with their leadership or subordinates by emphasizing these followership qualities to achieve mission and personal success.
While the leadership topic gets most of the attention in the PDG and elsewhere, I hope that you see it is followership at all levels of the Air Force that makes us successful. The enlisted force structure is grounded in followership and the good qualities of followership lead to good leadership. Therefore, I believe that if a person has not been trained to fill the follower role, the odds are that he or she will never reach his or her leadership potential.
In conclusion, before you look for fault in any situation the first step should be whether you have been exercising good followership. If you have, I assure you it will be much easier to resolve the situation at the lowest level.