There is a vicious circle of leadership where a follower demonstrates a weak skill to a leader, the leader feel he or she needs to take a stronger approach, the follower loses self-confidence, refers to leader again, and so on and so forth. I've been asked if this occurs in my organization. I can say that yes it does but only with certain followers.
The leader/follower relationship is largely symbiotic. They both need each other in order to be successful, though I wager leaders need followers more than followers need leaders. In the end a group of leaderless people with begin to self-organize and while they will most likely choose a leader (formally or informally) they will get on with whatever task at hand. Even in a Lord of the Flies scenario leaders, of a sort, came forth. This just means that leaders will be found. However, leaders can be quickly replaced or rebelled against. This may not always be a clean or even civil process but followers, when pushed too far, will remove leaders. A leader without a follower is pretty useless.
However, not all followers are capable of such independent thought. This is where I differ slightly from the principle that says it is the leader's responsibility to be aware of this cycle and break it. If the relationship is symbiotic than both parties need to be aware and take steps to change the cycle. To be fair, I don't think the text Complex Adaptive Leadership is stating that it is all on the shoulders of the leader but I do think students of leadership begin to see things from the leadership standpoint (Obolensky, 2010). This perspective can be hard to shift.
Getting back to my organization, there is one person in particular that stands out as a perfect example of the cycle. This person lacks self-confidence and while the heart is always in the right place his/her execution is often poor. This leads to the manager stepping in more often than the manager cares to do. I've seen the manager give projects (not overly complex tasks) to this person only to see the project go awry and then, though the manager had attempted to stay out of the process, the manager has to step back in. I see this happening more and more. So in this case the follower lacks the skill to break out of the cycle. The manager is trying to break it, but keeps getting drawn back. This cycle cannot be broken by one person alone. I think leadership training needs to be aware that there in not a magic solution to this problem. This employee isn't a bad employee but lacks the skills to move into a high level of followership. The assumption that all followers can be moved into a high level of followership is a dangerous fallacy.
However, a new cycle that attempts to break the vicious cycle only needs an additional step. That step is analyziation of the problem with a will to empower. Once a skill set has determined to be weak, leaders can train or otherwise focus on the skill, and ways to build this skill. This will take honest feedback and a willingness to actively engage with the follower in a constructive manner. This demands that the leader have a great deal of emotional intelligence. The leader must be aware, and this is where I think the leadership role is most crucial, of their own tendencies to over-reach or react in an emotional manner. If after all the retraining is offered the follower is still struggling it may be that the follower is in an incorrect role. Termination should be the ultimate last resort and re-assignment into other roles should be explored.
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