How do we talk about followership? Uncovering followership discourse(s) through World Café

Purpose This paper aims to uncover emerging followership discourses and themes. Additionally, this study examines how current and historic trends have shaped the direction of followership research and studies. Design/methodology/approach The research utilizes the World Café approach in collecting data from participants of three professional conferences: the Global Followership Conference, the Association of Leadership Educators conference and the International Leadership Association global conference. Artifacts from the sessions were analyzed thematically by manual sorting. Findings The findings reveal three followership discourses – maintaining, reframing and transforming discourses. Furthermore, the study highlights the influence of social media, the COVID-19 pandemic, power relations, etc. on followership discourses. Research limitations/implications The fluid and dynamic nature of World Café increases the risk of different interpretations and misconstruals of participants’ contributions. Further research is needed to confirm the findings and advance the understanding of followership discourses. Practical implications This paper will be beneficial to scholars and practitioners who are seeking understanding on how to build, recognize and appreciate a followership culture within their environment, including management development and related educational programs. Originality/value This study adopts the World Café approach, an unconventional qualitative data collection method for followership research and studies, highlighting its potential within participatory research. Additionally, the research presents a novel effort to explore the influence of historical and current trends in followership discourses.