Followership,

We usually tend to overestimate and to concentrate on managers and leaders rather than to the low rank employees, called first line employees. In the focus of the book written by Prof. Barbara, as the title implies, is not leadership but followership. So she has shifted our attention from leadership to followership. She argues that followers are as important as leaders, defining 5 types of followers in her book: Isolate Bystander, Participant, Activist and Diehard.

Kellerman argues that a big organization's fate can be surprisingly dependent on how well it understands thousands of low-ranking employees, and makes them more effective. This is best manifested at service industries. The service industry is very variable, as it calls for managerial and leader presence as much as it calls for effective first line employees presence. A very good result is achieved when exist a leader-follower interaction. Due to the works that they have to handle, and due to the fact that most of the services in hospitality service are 24h services (reception, security, technical assistance etc), they often are not always present with the guest as the first line employees. The guest will make the check in and the check out with the receptionist, will call the receptionist for whatever they might need or for the guest at the bar/ restaurant the first contact will be the waiter, and he will handle all his requests. 

The guest satisfaction depends on the level of service he is experiencing; consequently the guest loyalty is conditioned by the service that the first line employees are offering. The first line employees should be empowered and they should interact with the leaders (managers), they both should follow the company vision. There are cases when the managers tend to see themselves as “God”, sometimes also expressing this nonsense feeling in words when giving orders (I am the leader here!). Leadership must guide followership, it must stay on the followership side, always supporting and directing to the desired result. The leader should communicate give and take feedback from its followers.