La followership nelle organizzazioni

Although its importance has been emphasized by several authors over the years, the topic of followership still seems neglected. It is hard to find consensual definitions of followership in literature, but some of its crucial dimensions appear to be: interpreting and performing correctly the leader’s requests, supporting the leader with critical thinking, creativity, autonomy and clever use of upward influence in the construction of the relationship. Researchers are currently working, on the one hand to better define the construct and, on the other, to understand the relation between leadership and followership. This work aims to present a brief review of the literature on the theme: it starts with an overview of unresolved or controversial topics about the construct, then sets out an analysis of leadership literature, reinterpreted by some authors to highlight theoretical links with followership, and finally provides a description of the so-called “followership literature per se”, identifying some of the most frequent and significant issues. The few empirical studies that to date have investigated followership and developed its most important measurement tools are then outlined. In conclusion, the authors provide suggestions for further research and some implications for leadership/followership development and training.