What do we know about followership?

People spend years studying how to lead but not a day learning how to follow. Companies are no better. They invest millions in leadership development but not a single dime on followership.Why? 

I think there are two main reasons for this. First of all, no one wants to be a follower because we associate it with something negative. 

Secondly, many seem to believe that leadership is all that matters. Without great leaders, we can’t really achieve much, so why waste time on followership?

But here’s my question: how do we know leaders are vital and important if we don’t know anything about followership? And why do we think being a follower is a bad thing when we don’t even know what it means to follow?

Leadership has been our focal point for decades. Perhaps it’s time to see what we can achieve if we look beyond the traditional leadership perspective. Perhaps, studying followership will give us answer to questions we didn’t even know we had.