Followership Development and Enactment among the Acholi of Uganda

A Seamless Paradigm for Relational Leadership

David Wesley Ofumbi

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781532662201
  9781532662225
• eBook ISBN:
  9781532662232
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

The industrial era organizations used dualistic leadership theory, which regarded followers as objects of leaders' influence to socialize them into passive followership irrespective of context and outcome. Consequently, organizations focused on leadership and condemned active followership as a toxic behavior that sabotages organizational processes and outcomes. However, the emergence of relational leadership theory in the information era flattened organizational structure, which created a greater need for collaboration within and across sectors. In this new era, organizations cannot survive without responsible individuals who could be productive as both leaders and followers. As a result, organizations are experiencing high demand for active followership throughout organizational ranks, roles, and relationships. Nonetheless, since followership studies are still in their infancy, there is hardly any information on how followers develop and enact active followership. Whereas some studies established followership identity, role, and behaviors, and identified factors influencing their development, none has explored how they do so. This study offers a theory of followership development and enactment anchored in a seamless paradigm that can be used to expand leadership theory beyond dualistic tendencies that absolutized the differences among leadership variables despite their seamlessness. Therefore, it enhances organizational desire and capacity to develop and engage star followers effectively.

1

Introduction

The indispensable role leaders play in organizational management prompted the emergence of leadership theory.1 Central to the theory is the assumption that leaders are the subject of leadership, and other factors like followers are objects of leaders’ influence. This theory shone exclusive light on leaders and leading for over a century at the expense of followers and following.2 For instance, in Africa, it is implied in Chinua Achebe’s observation that a crisis of poor leadership is the foremost challenge of the continent,3 which accelerated leadership development programs across sectors as a panacea.4 Thus, slogans like “everything rises and falls on leadership” have won axiomatic acceptance.5

However, during my educational interaction with Christian leaders in East Africa, paradigm-changing experiences challenged my understanding of leadership as a unidirectional influence of leaders on followers. First, most leaders were reluctant to apply knowledge and skills that they thought would provoke opposition from their followers. On the other hand, northern Ugandan leaders narrated how the Acholi people influenced the Ugandan government to adopt a peaceful approach to settle the region’s conflict despite the latter’s preference for a military option.

Consequently, I began exploring and analyzing the phenomena of the flow of influence in leadership processes and outcomes because followers could not hold viable alternative viewpoints if they were merely passive recipients of leaders’ influence. Second, I felt disoriented when I realized that despite the explicit evidences of active followership in both encounters, I did not have a language to describe it or the competency to nurture it because I knew of neither a study nor a training program on it. Nonetheless, following prolonged research on the flow of influence and how it has been applied in leadership, I developed the curiosity to explore leadership as a context-specific human collaborative phenomenon driven by factors that are simultaneously independent and interdependent, which inspired me to pursue followership from the perspective of followers.

Most studies on followership have been conducted in North America in the context of business, schools, churches, and governmental departments.6 Virtually no study on active followership has been undertaken in Africa despite the topic’s popularity.7 Moreover, contextual factors heightening interest in it in North America and Africa are different.8 So far, it is difficult to relate followership phenomena in North America to the increasing agitation for active followership, especially in Africa.9

For example, despite the extensive literature available on northern Ugandan conflict, no study has examined the role of the Acholi active followership in the region’s conflict resolution as a unique countercultural phenomenon. The omission is not accidental. First, African indigenous cultures have been generally associated with a high-power distance and authoritarian sociocultural environment in which subordinates are socialized into passive followership.10 This saying among the Busoga, “Omwami kyankoba zena kyenkoba” (“What the chief has said is what I go with”), which presumes passive followership, typifies it.11 Second, the colonial powers in Sub-Saharan Africa created paternalism in the modern sector, which entrenched a dependency culture between leaders and followers.12 Therefore, the current grounded theory case study offers a window for understanding active followership in an African context. It explores how followers develop and enact followership identity, roles, and behaviors in the leadership process and outcomes. It uses the case of active followership among the Acholi as manifested in the northern Ugandan conflict resolution between 1985 and 2012.

Problem Statement

Whereas some studies in North America have established followership identity, roles, and behaviors,13 and identified factors influencing their development and enactment, none has examined how they do so.14 Furthermore, few studies on followership have been conducted in the African context, and none has touched upon the process of followership development and enactment. Therefore, the process of followership development and enactment is unknown, especially in an African context.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this grounded theory case study is to understand how northern Ugandan Acholi followers, during the troubled period between 1985 and 2012, developed and enacted followership identity, roles, and behaviors as they negotiated conflict resolutions with national leaders.

Research Question

The central question guiding this grounded theory case study is: How did northern Ugandan Acholi followers, during the period between 1985 and 2012, develop and enact followership identity, roles, and behaviors as they negotiated conflict resolutions with national leaders? Its subsequent questions are: (1) How did the followers understand and describe their followership identity, roles, and behaviors? (2) How did the followers describe factors influencing the ways in which they developed and enacted followership identity, roles, and behaviors? (3) How did the followers describe the ways in which factors influenced the development and enactment of their followership identity, roles, and behaviors?

Definitions

“Followership” herein refe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Abstract
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 1: Pivotal Eras in Followership Perception
• Chapter 3: The Case
• Chapter 4: Methods and Procedures
• Chapter 5: The Findings
• Chapter 6: Findings on Followership Development: Root Factors
• Chapter 7: Findings on Followership Enactment: Fruit Actions
• Chapter 8: Discussions and Summary
• Bibliography
• Appendix A
• Appendix B