Steward Followership Measurement

December 3, 2025

Steward Followership Measurement

George B. Warton | 2016

Abstract

Undergraduate leadership institutions pride themselves on their ability to produce graduates with the requisite leadership tools to navigate the organizational milieu their fledgling leaders will encounter. However, gaps in the theoretical underpinnings of leadership, particularly followership, likely leave the recent leadership graduate without the necessary tools to navigate the leadership requirements in today’s organization (Chaleff, 2009; Kelley, 2010; Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014). The purpose of this dissertation is to establish the steward follower as a theoretical outworking of courageous, exemplary, implicit, and ethical followership together with coproduction of leadership established within a steward leader paradigm (Carsten & Uhl-Bien, 2012, 2013; Chaleff, 2009; Kelley, 1992; Rich, 2012; Rodin, 2010; Sy, 2010). Following the conceptual establishment of the steward follower, an instrument originally proposed as a three-dimension followership measure (Kaak, Reynolds, & Whyte, 2013) is redesigned into the two-construct Steward Followership Measurement contrasting steward and egoistic followership. The instrument was rewritten as a result of the original design not meeting reliability and validity standards determined through statistical testing. The first survey of 1,576 cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) in August 2014 (Warton & O’Donnell, 2014) found that the dimensions of maturity and compliant followers factored to a single dimension describing the traits of the steward follower. The dimension of resistant follower was found to be unreliable and, therefore, rewritten for a subsequent survey in October 2015 of 1,146 cadets and renamed the Egoistic Follower Scale (Warton & O’Donnell, 2015). The results from the second survey utilizing the Steward Followership Measurement containing the steward follower and egoistic follower scales were determined to be both reliable and valid. Further, the results of the two surveys are instructive to the USAFA and others beyond the scope of this research focus.

Request Information

"*" indicates required fields

Facebook

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Online or On Campus*

Online

On Campus

On Campus Degree Type*

Online Degree Type*

Choose a Program*

This program is designed for registered nurses looking to advance their degree. A valid, unencumbered RN license is required to apply.

RN License Confirmation*

I currently hold a valid RN license

Don't have your RN license yet? Explore other Regent programs.

High School Graduation*

Are you an employee or the spouse/dependent of an employee?*

Employee

Spouse/Dependent

Are you a JCI USA member or benefitted employee, or the spouse/dependent of an employee?*

Employee/Member

Spouse/Dependent

Email Address*

Company*

Agency*

Employee's Company*

Employee's Agency*

Company Email Address*

Agency Email Address*

Your Email Address*

Employee's Company Email Address*

Employee's Agency Email Address*

Employee's First Name*

Employee/Member's First Name*

Employee's Last Name*

Employee/Member's Last Name*

Your Email Address*

First Name*

Last Name*

I live outside the US

Address*