Is it better to be a good follower or a bad leader?

The best way to think about the question is to stop treating leadership and followership as opposite ends of a hierarchy.

[Illustration: Adobe Stock]

BY Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Although leadership is often portrayed as a glamorous career destination, being put in a position of power or responsibility is by no means an indicator of your ability to actually lead effectively. In fact, decades of research highlight an uncomfortable and pervasive gap between the leaders we have, and those we actually need. Indeed, some of the traits that help people emerge as leaders appear far less useful once they actually have to lead: narcissism, for example, predicts leadership emergence but not leadership effectiveness.

Consider that the failure rate for corporate managers is estimated at least 50%, the confidence in our leaders continues to decline and is now at an all time low, and that the correlation between money spent on making our leaders better and people’s faith in our leaders is negative. Add to this the recurrent data on employee disengagement (caused mostly by their direct supervisors), and the fact that people join companies but quit their bosses, and the question seems rather unavoidable: if only a minority of leaders are capable of performing to a high level, then should fewer people try to become leaders? In other words, if a high-proportion of leaders become ineffective, incompetent or inept at their job, should fewer people consider leadership as a........

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