A follower assessment tool to understand your team members' followership styles and discover evidence-based approaches to support more effective followership
For Managers & Team LeadersThis diagnostic tool helps you assess the followership style of team members based on your observations, then provides tailored strategies to support more effective followership. It is based on Robert Kelley's Followership Model and contemporary leadership research.
Discover which of five followership styles best describes each team member's current approach.
Receive evidence-based strategies tailored to support more effective followership.
Use conversation starters, development approaches, and action plans to support growth.
Effective leadership is the result of effective followership and vice versa. As Haslam and colleagues note, "the ultimate proof of leadership is not what leaders are like or do but what their followers do." Understanding followership helps us create conditions where people can contribute their best.
Followership behaviour emerges from a complex system of interacting factors: organisational culture and history, workload and resourcing, policies and processes, team dynamics, individual circumstances and career stage, and yes, leadership. No single factor, including leadership, fully explains why someone shows up the way they do.
This tool focuses on leadership not because leaders are to blame for ineffective followership, but because how we lead is the factor most directly within our control. We cannot single-handedly change organisational culture or someone's personal circumstances, but we can change how we show up, and that often creates ripple effects throughout the system.
As Heifetz and Linsky remind us, the most powerful place to intervene in any system is often with ourselves. The guidance in this tool starts there.
Skip the assessment and go directly to guidance for a specific followership style.
If you're assessing multiple team members, look for patterns. What you see across your team often reveals more about the broader system, including your leadership, than any individual assessment.
This often indicates systemic factors: organisational culture, workload pressures, past leadership, or current conditions that discourage initiative. When multiple people show the same pattern, look to the environment first.
Widespread alienation signals significant trust or values issues somewhere in the system. This may stem from organisational decisions, broken promises, or accumulated experiences that have damaged people's connection.
High conformity can reflect broader public service culture, past experiences, or current leadership signals. Ask: what in this system makes agreement feel safer than honest input?
When many people are "waiting to see," it suggests genuine uncertainty about whether full engagement is safe or worthwhile. This may reflect organisational history, recent changes, or trust still being established.
Team-wide patterns are shaped by many forces: organisational culture, history, policies, workload, individual circumstances, and leadership. You can't control all of these, but you can control how you show up. If you want to shift the pattern, your own leadership is often the most practical place to start, not because you're to blame, but because it's the lever you can actually pull.
Research warns against treating leadership as solely about leaders, their traits, or their behaviours. Effective leadership operates through followers, not over them. Focus on building genuine connection and shared purpose rather than directing from a distance.
People follow leaders who they perceive as representing and advancing "our" interests. Emphasise "we" and "us," create shared experiences, and show that you're working toward common goals, not just directing others toward your goals.
Followership style is not fixed; it changes based on environment, relationships, and experiences. Before attributing a style to individual characteristics, examine whether your team environment may be contributing to or reinforcing certain patterns. Often, passive or alienated followership reflects systemic factors that leadership can help address.