Why Great Teams Don’t Depend on One Leader: The Science of Shared Influence – Ron Riggio

Full transcript and show notes: https://www.sharnafabiano.com/2026/07/29/why-great-teams-dont-depend-on-one-leader-the-science-of-shared-influence-ron-riggio/

What changes when we stop assuming the leader is the person who makes things happen and everyone else simply follows? Dr. Ron Riggio explores two decades of followership research showing that effective teams are built through mutual influence, shared responsibility, and the active participation of the people around the leader.

Ron Riggio is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and former Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College, where the first followership conference was held in 2006. His research has helped expand our understanding of how followers contribute to leadership processes, including current work on the anatomy of followership, implicit peer theory, and storytelling approaches to studying group behavior.

You’ll learn:

• Why teams struggle when people assume “the leader knows best” 
• How employees influence outcomes even without formal authority 
• What research reveals about the behaviors of effective team contributors 
• Why leadership is created through relationships, not just individual actions 
• How understanding follower identity can change the way teams work together 

 
Episode References

Claremont McKenna College
https://www.cmc.edu

Art of Followership, by Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, & Jean Lipman-Blumen (Eds.)
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Followership-Followers-Leaders-Organizations/dp/0787996653

Global Followership Conference
http://www.followershipconference.com 

Liu, Z., Riggio, R.E., Reichard, R.J., & Walker, D.O. (2022). Everyday leadership: The construct, its validation, and developmental antecedents. International Leadership Journal, 14(1), 3-35.

Beenen, G., Todorova, G., Pichler, S. & Riggio, R.E. (2022). Reconceptualizing multilevel leader-follower shared outcomes. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 29(2), 289-305. https://doi.org/10.1177/15480518221094481

Riggio, R.E., Lowe, K.B., & Levy, L. (2023). Why are followers neglected in leadership research.Organization Development Review, 55(3), 44-48.

 Riggio, R.E. (2014). Followership research: Looking back and looking forward.  Journal of Leadership Education, 13, DOI: 10.12806/V13/I4/C4