How Do We Talk About Followership? Uncovering Emerging Followership Discourses through World Café

Until recently, research and discourses on followership have been commonly written from the standpoint of leadership. Even so, there have been arguments against the popularity of followership as an independent field of study and research. Nevertheless, many scholars and practitioners are beginning to immerse themselves in the study of followership, its discourse, and related dynamics. Using the World Café approach for data collection, this study uncovers emerging followership themes and discourses from participants of three professional conferences: the Global Followership Conference, the Association of Leadership Educators annual conference, and the International Leadership Association global conference. Data retrieved from the participants were coded thematically and findings revealed that emerging followership discourses may be categorized into three themes: “Maintaining,” “Reframing,” and “Transforming.”