There are some subordinates that have a deep understanding of their supervisor’s world. More than others, they understand their supervisor’s work relationships, preferences, demands, and resources. The goal of this thesis was to predict and test how this collection of strategic and sensitive information, or follower political knowledge, develops. Using the active perspective-taking framework, I focused on a subordinate’s motivation, capacity, and opportunity to acquire follower political knowledge. In particular, I hypothesized that key individual, relational, and contextual factors would predict follower political knowledge. Two studies were conducted to test these predictions: a cross-sectional survey of 467 employees and a cross-sectional survey of 174 supervisor-subordinate dyads. Across studies, political skill, leader-member exchange, and supervisors’ trust were the strongest predictors of follower political knowledge. The implications of these findings present a case to be made for the role of follower political knowledge in effective followership. / October 2016