Another Star is Born

On March 31, 2025, the Chair of Leadership had the joy of celebrating a proud milestone: Anna van der Velde defended her dissertation “The Power of Followers: How Follower Behavior Influences the Leadership Process” and walked away with summa cum laude! 

Anna’s research focuses on how leaders perceive employees who do not follow. For example, such team members may behave entitled or react overly emotionally rather than “simply doing the job”. Across three papers, she investigated how leaders react to such behavior and how they cope with it in the long run. Anna’s work has already made waves in top journals like The Leadership Quarterly and has a revise-and-resubmit at a leading psychology journal. And if you ever attended one of our courses at WHU, you might have used her “resistance cards” – a creative teaching tool that turns leadership theory into practice.

While her research explores resistance and entitlement, Anna herself has brought nothing but kindness and humility to her work. So, it came as no surprise that her defense turned into a joyful celebration with many friends, family, and co-authors (including Vera Schweitzer and Prisca Brosi) traveling from across Germany to support her and cheer her on.

As if a PhD weren’t enough, Anna also managed to pursue her training as a psychotherapist alongside her research – adding yet another unique dimension to her profile. Therefore, we can’t wait to see where her journey takes her next! Congratulations, Dr. van der Velde!