Followership in the Engineering Leadership Programs at Cornell University - Erica Dawson

I speak with Erica Dawson, Professor of Practice and Nancy and Bob Selander Executive Director of the Engineering Leadership Programs at Cornell University.

Erica’s Montana upbringing instilled in her a deep sense of connection to the mountains and outdoors. But her thirst for adventure was too big even for the Big Sky State, so eventually she made the leap to New York to pursue a PhD in Social Psychology at Cornell University. She went on to become a professor at the Yale School of Management, where her intellectual interests expanded from judgement and decision-making to themes of developing human potential. As a Faculty Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, she has traveled the world teaching ethical leadership to audiences as diverse as Tibetan monks, European women pharmaceutical scientists, and Colombian judges. 

Erica left Yale after a decade to found the US-Israel Center for Innovation and Economic Sustainability at UC-San Diego, then returned to Cornell in 2012 as the founding Executive Director of the Cornell Engineering Leadership Program.  

As you can see, Erica has a fascinating and varied background. I invited her to speak on the podcast because she has built and continues to build followership into the engineering leadership curricula in very fundamental and transformative ways, and there is a lot to learn from what’s been happening there over the past decade.


“If you don’t have an appreciation for what it is to be an active, effective, powerful follower, you absolutely cannot be an active, effective, powerful leader.”

“Some people have never identified that if I’m showing up and I’m just disengaged, I’m costing the group something. There’s a responsibility to either become engaged or exit myself, because it’s a cost.”

“For some…understanding that followership is a very active role, where you own your own ability to both support and challenge, that’s pretty novel.” 

“When we teach followership we are teaching the fundamental skills of being able to have influence from any position in a team or an organization, and that’s actually what people want.”

Episode References

Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower
https://irachaleffauthor.com/books-the-courageous-follower/

Cornell Engineering Leadership Programs
https://leadership.engineering.cornell.edu/

S1 E5: Equitable Leading and Following in the Coaching Relationship - Amy Lombardo
https://leadfollow.buzzsprout.com/1735834/8586603-a-model-of-equitable-leading-and-following-in-the-coaching-relationship-amy-lombardo