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Korean Journal of Policy Studies
Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University

Korean J. Policy Stud. 2011; 26(2):101-120

pISSN: 1225-5017, eISSN: 2765-2807

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52372/kjps26205

Article

Followership Characteristics among US Federal Government Employees*

Chulwoo Kim1
1Chulwoo Kim has a PhD in public administration from the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University. His research interests include organizational behavior, leadership, human resource management, citizen participation, and performance management. E-mail: czaroo@rutgers.edu.

© Copyright 2011 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jun 08, 2011; Revised: Jun 16, 2011; Revised: Jul 13, 2011; Accepted: Aug 01, 2011

Published Online: Aug 31, 2011

Abstract

Empowering collective action among leaders and followers in the US public sector has been encouraged to solve public problems in a complex and globalized society. However, without considering who the participants are, how much influence they have, and the various situations in which they find themselves, empowerment is not an adequate solution to existing public challenges. Understanding followership—the process empowered participants use to follow— is a prerequisite to understanding successful empowerment. This study examines followership as it is practiced within the US federal government. Data from the Federal Human Capital Survey data, which had 212,223 respondents and was administered by the Office of Personnel Management in 2008, were used. The results indicate that different followership styles are dominant in different agencies. Followership styles also differ depending on job rank, which also explains possible distinctions between different groups in public organizations.

Keywords: followership; leadership; US federal government