This paper suggests that the current focus on leadership underestimates the role of followers in securing a successful health service and overestimates the ability of individual ‘heroic’ leaders to make a significant difference to all circumstances.

The authors conclude that if we continue to run the nation’s health as a National Illness Service – run by commanders in repair mode, responding to the ever- growing medical needs of the population – we will never mobilise enough followers to provide an efficient or effective service. If, on the other hand, we shift to leaders in prevent mode and run a National Health Service then the mobilisation of sufficient numbers of responsible followers might just work.

Download: Followership in the NHS