Followership Ethics Case Study

Followership Ethics: In every relationship between leaders and followers, followers have traditionally functioned as the silent partners. One of the major reasons for this tendency is the increased focus on the actions of politicians, executives and other leaders by most press reports instead of the actions of their subordinates. Secondly, organizations spend huge portions of their finances on training leaders with minimal expenditures on subordinates’ training. Third, most of the existing literature, especially academic books and articles, focus on leadership while very few focus on followership. The increased focus on leadership instead of followership is thoughtless given that followers do a huge portion of the work. In essence, leaders cannot function effectively without the input of their followers. As a result of their work, followers deserve a lion’s share of credit and recognition for the success of a group (Johnson, 2012, p.273). In light of the increased need to focus on

Generally, follower must regularly adhere to the orders and directive of their leaders. While followers also need to follow orders and directives that they don’t like, the ethical challenge is determining when to disobey. The challenge of obedience is a critical ethical issue for followers because obeying directives and orders can make them engage in immoral and illegitimate activities, which they would probably never engage on their own. Some of the major considerations for followers to make in determining when to disobey include whether the order or directive result in unethical behavior and potential consequences for others if the orders are complied with. In addition, they need to examine whether compliance will endanger the objective and health of the entire organization and the necessary steps to take if they decide to disobey the orders or