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Enough About Leadership!

What are the benefits of followership, and how can it make for better leaders?

The immense literature that has accumulated on leadership encourages us to believe in the almost mythical power of these "heroic" individuals. What is largely lost in this literature is any mention of followers, and of their importance in organizational success (though we do hear about their role in organizational failures). This imbalance is heavily reinforced in the media: Movies about heroic political and organizational leadership abound, but try and find a movie about the virtues of followership.

Yet coinciding with the enormous body of research on leadership is a growing awareness that leaders do not act alone. Followers play a critical in role shaping leaders' successes and failures. In this free 60-minute webinar, Dr. Julian Barling will discuss fascinating findings from research studies documenting the importance of followers.

In this session, you will learn:

  • The benefits of followership to your organization
  • How followership can increase the effectiveness of leadership
  • Potential implications for for traditional day-to-day practices including compensation and selection

Session Leader

Dr. Julian Barling

Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Borden Chair of Leadership

Julian Barling is a professor and Borden Chair of Leadership at Smith School of Business. He is an authority on transformational leadership and was named one of the 10 most influential leadership researchers in the world in one analysis. Julian has received numerous awards for teaching and research. In 2002, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and received the National Post’s “Leaders in Business Education” award. Julian is an elected fellow of several international research societies, and the author of over 200 research articles and 15 books, including The Science of Leadership: Lessons from Research for Organizational Leaders.