The Leader-Follower-Driver Relationships for Social Change
This assignment is meant to give you the opportunity to explore how Drivers affect the Leader-Follower relationship for Social Change. Each of the steps below need only be answered in a couple of sentences or a paragraph, but the paper itself should be written in an essay format, not simply as answers to questions or numbered sections.
1. List the person or organization that you see as the traditional leader in any field of your choice. You can be described by title or by name, for instance in the field of medicine, leaders can be described as doctors, hospitals, HMO’s or Dr. Seuss.
2. Who is a traditional follower or who are followers of this leader? Again, this can be a person’s title or a name or a group of people. You should only list one set of followers, because if you list several you may accidently make too many generalizations about the leader-follower relationship.
3. Describe what you believe is the most important traditional driver defines this leader-follower relationship. What is the most significant influence economically, socially, ecologically, politically, spiritually, etc.?
4. Then, try to define how the drivers in that field might change or are currently changing. Describe this as a new driver. These changes may be obvious, but many are not. Leaders of the future are often the ones who can perceive these changes and position themselves to lead before others.
5. Finally, try to predict or define who you feel is or will be the new leader(s) and follower(s) in that field based upon your predicted change in drivers. Of course, and it is common, even with changes in external drivers – the leader(s) or follower(s) may not change. This would be an indication of leadership that is aware of those external drivers and are successful in getting out ahead of the curve.
6. You should use at least one citation/reference from something other than your textbook or course handouts, and please use APA, MLA or another approved format for this paper, which includes 12-point font, 1” side margins and a standard font, such as Ariel or Times New Roman. The paper should be at least 750 words, or about 2.5 pages double-spaced. Please do not write more than 3 pages; brevity is a virtue!
