Versatility: Integrating followership and leadership
Even individuals who demonstrate complexity-based leadership will see
that constantly maintaining this vantage point is unsustainable in all
contexts. Leaders that exhibit versatility will adjust their leadership
or followership capabilities to fit the situation or need. Understanding
context is key; it requires the situational awareness that comes with
leadership experience to assume other roles and adapt as necessary.
Complexity requires versatility, where a leader may assume the role of a
follower.
For example, a global pandemic that disrupts both clinical and academic
missions of an AHC requires leaders to work together across purposes and
portfolios to reimagine workflows, manage health human resource
challenges, ensure adjustment of strategic priorities, collaborate to
create new budgeting models or pitch new capital expenses to react to
the patient surges, research disruptions, and ongoing education needs
within a pandemic.27-29 Within a single day, the same
department chair may be engaging with multiple departments across the
AHC. All the while this individual must bear in mind various roles they
play, dynamically toggling between leading and following in varying
settings. Having this versatility to transition between roles allows an
individual to align with others and fill the necessary function of
serving the larger process or goal. For many, it is this constant
switching of leadership-followership perspectives that is
psychologically exhausting.