Workshop Title: Great Leaders Follow First: Building Capacity for Mission-Driven Leadership
Leadership and followership are often treated as opposites, but healthy mission-driven organizations need people who can do both well. In this practical workshop at HSLDA’s National Leaders Conference, Dr. Julie Armstrong will draw from leadership and followership research to explore how critical thinking, active engagement, humility, courage, discernment, and ownership help people contribute meaningfully to a shared mission—and prepare them for greater leadership responsibility.
Participants will examine the conditions leaders can create for healthy followership to flourish, while also considering what effective followers reveal about effective leadership. Rather than viewing followership as passive compliance, the session reframes it as an important form of organizational capacity: developing people who can think well, engage constructively, exercise appropriate initiative, and ultimately help carry the mission forward.