Arquero, Bryan Dave G.

BS Crim 1-B

By understanding the dynamic of followership, military organizations can treat followership

like discipline and improve leader-follower cultures. Through education, soldiers and officers
can learn how to be effective and courageous followers as well as good leaders, potentially
preventing future unethical decisions.
I’ve learned that the important role of followership in organizations is increasingly recognized.
People are followers more often than leaders, and effective leaders and followers share similar
characteristics. An effective follower is both independent and active in the organization. When
discussing leadership and followership within a military group setting, there is a split in personal
opinion as to which one is more important. Leadership and followership both offer unique
benefits in their own right and have supporting factors that give them the perceived appearance
of being more important. The focus of this paper will be to advocate the importance of
followership over that of leadership. This will be accomplished by addressing the pros of
followership to include core skills of followership and the effects followership has on the
development of a leader. The expectation of an officer within the Philippines military however,
places a high amount of emphasis on leadership more so than that of followership. Given this
perceived importance of leadership as an officer, strategic leadership will be expanded upon and
how officers develop this particular leadership style. While leadership has a distinct presence
within the professional work environment, followership is considered the underlying backbone in
developing an effective high performing team.
In addition, followership is considered a discipline that when viewed from a professional
perspective is considered an art and a science that requires a balance between the development of
skills and the understanding of followership roles within a professional environment. This is an
active skill that must me possess and developed by the members of military organization.