The Rising Influence : The Impact of Followers' Influence on Leaders in Business Organizations

This study is concerned with followers impact on managerial leadership. In the traditional leader-centric views on leadership, influence is regarded as something coming from above in the organization. We take another stance, and look at influence as wave from followers, rising up in the organizational system. This study aims to contribute to the expansion of the followership research field, which would simultaneously lead to filling gaps within leadership research. Based on our findings from five cases, we found that followers have influence not only on leaders but on the whole organization system. A major finding was that the attitude among followers had a huge impact on leaders motivation and performance. Other means of influence were discovered as well