Mission-Driven Followership and Civic Engagement: A Different Sustainable Energy

Susan Keim

Journal of Leadership Education

ISSN: 1552-9045

Open Access. Article publication date: 15 October 2014

Issue publication date: 15 October 2014

83
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Abstract

The concept of civic engagement, defined independently of engagement in political, social, or vocational organizations connects the parallel concept of followership to civic engagement with two kinds of follower motivation emerging: mission-oriented and leader- oriented. The mission-driven follower “owns” the cause and supports it with an ongoing, sustainable energy, while the leader-driven follower participates based on esteem for the leader. In the latter case, the leader must continually renew the follower’s engagement through direct requests and exhortation. This research has identified an area of emergent opportunity in the leadership and followership literature, conceptualizing civic engagement as most significantly motivated by mission-driven followership. Practically, mission-driven followers should be sought out and encouraged to volunteer because they support the mission and are more likely to stay with the organization through leadership changes. Theoretically, the addition of a quantitative analysis of mission-driven and leader-driven followership contributes to the emerging scholarship on followership.

Citation

Keim, S. (2014), "Mission-Driven Followership and Civic Engagement: A Different Sustainable Energy", Journal of Leadership Education, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 76-87. https://doi.org/10.12806/V13/I4/C9

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, The Journal of Leadership Education

License

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/


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