Thought Leadership
Research, publications, presentations, and impact stories.
A home for leadership insights, conference presentations, applied research, and examples of community impact.
Articles
Leadership reflections, practical advisory insights, and commentary on organizational change.
Research
Research notes connected to inclusive leadership, civic empowerment, and cross-sector leadership practice.
Conference Presentations
Global Followership Conference 2026, International Leadership Association 2026, and dissertation research.
Articles
Followership in Practice: An Eight-Part Scholar-Practitioner Reflection Series
This eight-part series examines followership as a relational, cultural, and organizational process. Drawing on scholarship and more than two decades of civic, organizational, and cross-sector experience, Dr. Ling Luo explores how leadership and followership shape one another through structure, identity, trust, reciprocal influence, and shared responsibility.
Part 8
The Missing Direction of Influence: When Followership Activates Leadership
At the 2026 DNC Summer Meeting in Austin, I participated in a training session on community engagement and coalition building. During the discussion, I shared our experience organizing diverse Asian American communities in Texas to stand together and voice...
Part 7
When Trust Becomes the Currency of Followership: Why People Choose to Follow When They Are Free Not To
A recent exchange about whether exemplary followership can become a pathway to leadership led me to revisit something I have observed repeatedly through years of leading civic and nonprofit organizations.
Part 6
Beyond Leading and Following: A Yin-Yang Perspective on Leadership and Followership
Can an ancient Chinese philosophy help us rethink one of the newest fields in leadership studies?
Part 5
Why I Never Felt Comfortable Being Called a Leader
A Scholar-Practitioner's Reflection on Leadership Identity
After spending more than two decades founding organizations, mobilizing volunteers, and leading civic engagement efforts, people often refer to me as a leader. Ironically, despite earning a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership, I have never felt entirely...
Part 4
Why Do Some Leaders Grow Together with Their Followers?
Over the past several weeks, I have explored followership through historical, cultural, and organizational perspectives. As I reflected on these ideas, I realized that some of the most meaningful lessons about followership did not come from academic...
Part 3
How Does Organizational Structure Shape Followership?
Reflections on Corporate Hierarchies and Civic Organizations
In my first essay, Why Was Followership Never Taught?, I looked to traditional Chinese households to understand why followership, despite being an ancient and essential human practice, was rarely recognized as an independent field of study. Those...
Part 2
A Scholar-Practitioner's Dilemma: When Even the Word “Followership” Carries Social Meaning
This essay is not intended to challenge followership scholarship. Rather, it reflects on an unexpected tension I encountered while applying emerging followership concepts within the real-world relationships I had spent more than two decades building before...
Part 1
Why Was Followership Never Taught?
Reflections on Traditional Chinese Households and the Historical Evolution of Leadership-Followership
Presenting at the 2026 Global Followership Conference prompted me to think beyond current theories and ask a question that has stayed with me since returning home:
Research
Research publications and applied research notes.
Research publications and applied research notes will be added here as they become available.
Conference Presentations
Conference presentations.
Conference presentations and reflections will be added here as they become available.