In the Eyes of the Beholder: Leaders’ Personality and Courageous Followership

Abstract

The literature on leadership through the lens of followership does not provide empirical evidence of leaders’ personalities and their perception of subordinates’ courageous followership behaviors. This paper explores the connection between personality and courageous followership. The study sample is 190 school leaders working in the top private schools in Pakistan as regular employees. The responses collected through simple random sampling techniques and Stata 16 software software are used for data analysis. Data analysis indicates that leaders having extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, and openness to intellectual/imagination personality traits perceive their subordinates’ behaviors as courageous followers, whereas the neuroticism personality trait resulted in a negative perception of courageous followership behaviors among Pakistani school leaders. This paper is prominent research in a new direction of leadership through followership. This study recommends emphasizing the development of positive personality traits in leaders so that they can transform their subordinates into courageous followers, which is an antidote to toxic leadership.