Followership : an Australian university dilemma?

Exclusive top-down leadership and decision-making is a key feature of the version of ‘managerialism’ that is prevalent in the higher education sector. This paper challenges that dominant organisational approach. It uses a qualitative case study of followership philosophy and practices at Murdoch University to argue that there is a need to reframe the followership/leadership divide. The end result is to reconstruct the passive pejorative version of the ‘follower’ to a more ‘active follower’ role. The leadership role is then redefined to be an important, but not exclusive, part of the organisational decision-making process. The adaptability and self-organising capability of the workforce requires an inclusive, not exclusive, decision-making methodology to unlock and realise the full future potential of the modern university.