Followership Styles and Employee Attachment to the Organization

Successful followership is an important but understudied characteristic of employees. Following Kelley's (1992) followership conceptualization, we propose that there are two dimensions of followership: independent critical thinking and active engagement. Additionally, we argue that these two dimensions of followership interact and are associated with important work outcomes, particularly job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We surveyed 331 university employees. Results indicate that there are two followership behavior dimensions from Kelley's model that align with critical thinking and active engagement constructs. Active engagement is positively associated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Independent critical thinking is negatively associated with organizational commitment and extrinsic job satisfaction. Interaction effects between these constructs are also discussed.