PTBetween leaders and followers
What makes someone learn and feel energized at work: the boss, or the way the person who is led behaves? With 305 professionals who answered as followers, the thesis traces the path from the leader, openness to change and followership to thriving at work. Explained in 12 screens.
Followers help make leadership too
For a long time, research treated people who are led as the boss's audience. Since the 1960s, some authors have looked at the other side and classified followers. The thesis calls this view followership (keeping the English term, because the Portuguese equivalent sounds passive). Pick an author and tap a type:
Typologies by Zaleznik (1965), Kelley (1992), Chaleff (1995) and Kellerman (2008), section 2.2.2 and Chart 4 of the thesis. Map positions are approximate, based on each author's dimensions.
Kelley measures followers by two traits: engaging and thinking
The thesis used Robert Kelley's questionnaire. Answer four of its 20 questions, from 1 (never) to 7 (always), and see where you land on his map:
Illustrative exercise. Real questionnaire items (Chart 11, translated), but the thesis does not sort respondents into types, and the zone cut-offs are ours. Kelley's types from Chart 3.
Almost no one had studied these pieces together
The author searched four article databases. On followers, 43 studies with data remained. And none brought together the pieces of the thesis model:
Web of Science and Scopus (Chart A1), filtered by field, type and language. In the Brazilian databases Scielo and Spell, every combination also returned zero (Chart A2).
PRISMA flowchart of the thesis (Figure 1). Tap a stage.
Five pieces in one model
Two new leadership styles and a personal value, openness to change, would lead to followership, and everything to thriving at work. There are six hypotheses (the arrows). Tap a piece to see how it was measured:
Conceptual model (Figure 8) and scales from Chart 13. Each person answered about their own leader and about themselves, always in the role of follower.
The same survey in two groups of people
In Study A, employees of a Brazilian technology and education company. In Study B, an open questionnaire shared on LinkedIn and WhatsApp and by Sindusfarma (the pharmaceutical industry union) and ABRH-SP (the São Paulo HR association). A was used to fine-tune the model; B, to see whether it holds for other people.
40 responses (11%) were removed: people who ticked the same number on more than 80% of the questions or failed the attention checks ("tick option X"). Table 1 and sections 4.4 and 4.5.
Study A · 144
Study B · 161
Tables 2 and 13. Even people who were managers answered about their own leader, in the role of follower.
To the people answering, the two leadership styles are almost the same
In theory, the adaptive leader adjusts the way they lead to each situation, and the authentic leader is transparent and true to their values. Each statement below comes from one of the two scales. Guess which:
Correlation of 0.926 between the two leaderships in the full Study A model (Table 5). Pairs of similar statements: Chart 15. Circle overlap ≈ squared correlation (86%), our calculation, as an illustration.
The follower's critical thinking split in two
Kelley's questionnaire has 10 engagement questions and 10 critical thinking questions. In the answers, critical thinking separated into two ways of acting: solving problems without waiting for the boss, and speaking up, even disagreeing with them. Go through the steps:
Height = number of questions. Exploratory factor analysis (section 5.1.2.1, Chart 14) and items removed in rounds 3 and 5. Of the 20 items, 14 stayed in the final model (our count).
Followership is what is most strongly linked to thriving
Because the two leaders blurred together, the thesis tested one model with each. In all of them, the thickest arrow runs from followership to thriving: people who engage and think for themselves report learning more and having more energy. Switch the study and the leader, and tap an arrow:
Standardized coefficients (β) from SmartPLS 4, Tables 12 (Study A) and 20 (Study B). Arrow thickness ∝ β; dashed = not significant. R² = how much of the differences between people the model explains. Association at a single point in time, not proof of cause.
Part of the effect goes through the follower
Openness to change has no direct arrow to thriving: it reaches it only through followership. The leader has both paths, one direct and one through the follower. The thesis measured each path separately.
Effects on thriving. Direct: Tables 12 and 20. Specific indirect effects (with bootstrap confidence intervals): Appendices J and K. Stacked bars: our calculation.
The same question in another sample
In the company (Study A), all six hypotheses held. In the open survey (Study B), with people from many companies, each had a second chance to fail. Place your bet: did it hold?
R² of the models (Tables 12 and 20). For the author, authentic leadership seems a more stable predictor across contexts; adaptive leadership, more sensitive to the company and culture (section 6.1).
Study B, Table 20. "Barely": p = 0.043, close to the 0.05 threshold.
Thriving also depends on the people who are led
For the author, training only the leader is not enough: companies need to encourage followers to take the lead in their own work and a culture open to change. Thriving at work takes shape in the space "between leaders and followers".
For HR and NR-1
- Since May 2025, Brazil's NR-1 rule requires companies to map psychosocial risks; the author suggests going beyond compliance.
- Measuring learning and energy can help spot teams at risk of burnout.
For those who lead
- Acting with transparency and consistency, and adjusting one's style to the situation, goes along with teams that learn more and have more energy.
- Making room for followers to disagree and propose is part of the process.
For those who are led
- Engaging, solving problems without waiting for the boss and speaking up were what was most strongly linked to thriving.
- Valuing novelty and autonomy goes along with this active way of being led.
What this research does not say
- One company and a convenience sample. Study A comes from a single company; B from whoever chose to answer, highly educated (93% with a degree or more). · according to the author, with data from Tables 2 and 13
- One moment, the same person. Each person answered about the leader and about themselves in the same questionnaire; this does not prove cause and may inflate the links. · according to the author
- Two leaders that do not separate. The adaptive and authentic leadership scales measure almost the same thing for respondents, perhaps a general "positive leader". · according to the author (section 6.2)
- A measure that is still fragile. The engagement questions are long or mix ideas, and fell below the quality criterion (AVE < 0.5). · according to the author
Credits
BARBARINI, Antonio César. Entre líderes e liderados: um estudo sobre o followership e caminhos para a prosperidade no trabalho. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration) — Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, 2026. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Diógenes de Souza Bido.
Supported by the Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie (full tuition waiver). Data analysed in SmartPLS 4 and Jamovi. According to the author, AI tools (Perplexity, Gemini, SciSpace, Consensus, Manus and Grammarly) supported the literature search, the screening of low-quality responses, R code and text revision. This version simplifies the work for a general audience.