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Followership

Five hours into her shift, four harried customers line up at Dawn
Marshall’s cash register at the Pathmark supermarket in Upper Derby,
Pennsylvania. Eight minutes and 27 bags later, they’re all out the door
with smiles on their faces. Few people would think Marshall has a glam-
ourous or infl uential job—but she treats it like the most signifi cant job in
the world.
In a society that is rapidly going self-service, Marshall specializes in
giving people a little bit of luxury in the mundane chore of grocery shop-
ping. She’s a good cashier, but her forte is bagging. Marshall knows how to
pack the fl imsy plastic bags so that eggs don’t get broken, bread doesn’t get
squashed, and ground beef doesn’t leak all over the cereal boxes. She even
won a National Grocers Association contest as the best bagger in America,
based on speed, bag-building technique, style, and attitude. “I believe it’s an art
that should be taken seriously,” Marshall says of her work. Many Pathmark
customers agree. They’re tired of cashiers and baggers who simply throw the
stuff in bags without giving a care for the customer’s convenience or needs.
One customer admits that she shops at Pathmark rather than a store closer
to her home because of Marshall. “I like her attitude,” says the customer.
“Clone her.”
Even though Marshall works on her feet all day and often has to put
up with rude or insensitive customers, she handles whatever comes her way
with a positive attitude. For Marshall, her job is not bagging groceries, but
making people’s lives easier. Thus, she approaches her work with energy
and enthusiasm, striving to do her best in every encounter. She doesn’t need
close supervision or someone pushing her to work harder. The busier it is,
the better she likes it. 1
At Pathmark, Dawn Marshall has taken what some would consider a
boring, low-paying job and imbued it with meaning and value. She accepts
responsibility for her own personal fulfi llment and fi nds ways to expand
her potential and use her capacities to serve the needs of others and the
organization. These are the hallmarks of both good followers and good
leaders.
Leadership and followership are closely intertwined. As a Pathmark ca-
shier, Dawn Marshall is a follower, but she acts as a leader by setting an exam-
ple for others and using her positive attitude to inspire and uplift other people.
She is capable of self-management rather than needing someone else to tell her
how to approach her work, and she strives to create a positive impact rather
than dwelling on the negative aspects of her job. Effective followers like Dawn
Marshall are essential to the success of any endeavor, whether it be running
a supermarket, winning a football game, completing a class assignment, or
organizing a United Way fund drive.
In this chapter, we examine the important role of followership,
including the nature of the follower’s role, the different styles of follow-
ership that individuals express, and how effective followers behave. The
chapter also explores sources of power available to followers and how
followers develop their personal potential to be more effective. Finally,
we look at the leader’s role in developing effective followers and how fol-
lowers can work with leaders to build a sense of community within their
organizations.

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