Follower-Centered Leadership: The Relationship Between Followers

December 3, 2025

Follower-Centered Leadership: The Relationship Between Followers’ Perception of the Leaders’ Implicit Followership Theory and Authentic Followership

Sunghee Kim | 2021

Abstract

Follower-centered leadership focuses on followers’ roles and the behavior that influences leaders. The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the relationship between the followers’ perception of the leaders’ implicit followership theory (LIFT) and the followers’ self-report of their own authentic followership (AF). Based on Shamir’s call to “reverse the lens,” I examined two follower-centered approaches using LIFT (e.g., role-based views) and AF (e.g., constructionist views). I designed this study as a quantitative correlational study to test 24 hypotheses under a central research question. Data were collected via survey from a convenience sample of 151 South Korean participants through Facebook, email, and the KakaoTalk mobile messaging app. The participants and completed the full questionnaire online anonymously using Google Forms. The sample size estimated using G*Power was 134 individuals; thus, 150 individuals were recruited, accounting for a 10% loss rate due to unusable response. Sy’s six-factor Implicit Followership Theory (IFT) and VanWhy’s four-factor Authentic Followership Profile (AFP) Questionnaires were used as the survey instruments. Pearson’s correlation analysis was used to analyze the data using the SPSS statistics. The results showed that the variables in most hypotheses were significantly correlated, ranging from -.25 to .55 at the p < .01 level. The findings indicated that followers’ perception of leaders’ positive and negative assumptions was associated with their authentic behaviors, except Conformity of LIFT (from r = -.04 to r = .15). This study contributed to leadership and followership scholarship by extending follower-centered approaches and the GLOBE project, answering scholars’ calls, and filling the identified data gap.

Keywords: follower-centered, implicit followership theory, authentic followership

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