The Importance of Followership in Human Resources

Abstract

Leaders have taken the center stage of leadership for many years; researchers start to point out the transition from leadership to followership. When people discuss leadership, they should consider followership because leadership does not occur if followership does not follow. Characteristics and behaviors of leadership and followership are variables of followership, and they can influence followership outcomes. Followership provides a new way for people to think about leadership and helps people understand what a follower should or should not do to be an effective follower. To examine what makes followership important and how followership influences human resources, this literature review conducted searches for relevant followership research within the field of human resources. The details of documents by year, records per year by source, documents by country/territory, and documents by subject area were identified and summarized.