From Management to Leadership: Strategies for Transforming Health, 3rd Edition

The Leadership Relationship

The quality of the leader and follower’s relationship directly affects the leader’s effectiveness. Without the foundation for a healthy relationship, aspiring leaders cannot attain extraordinary outcomes. Although troubled leaders seldom return to the basic components of a healthy relationship when they are frustrated by followers who do not follow, the answer to their difficulties often lies within this basic concept. This chapter outlines the essential elements of a healthy leader-follower relationship and examines briefly the concepts of collaboration and partnerships, both of which depend on a willingness to relate at an interdependent level, probably the most complex of relationship forms.