Talking with Amanda the other day, she said to me, "I think leadership is overrated. I'm planning on being a follower instead." Thinking of followers succumbing to peer pressure and doing dangerous things, sort of like lemmings going over the cliff, I managed to ask noncommittally, "Oh, really?"
So she explained. If there are too many leaders each trying to go in a different direction, you get chaos. What she was going to do was to find a leader who made the most sense, and follow that person and help him or her be more successful. If there came another leader who was better, she would move to following that person.
It is definitely true that there are more people (for example) working at a company than being CEO, and so it makes sense to prepare to follow people you believe in and follow them well. It is definitely true that at her elementary school where everyone believes him or herself to be a leader, there is a lot of chaos. I did not tell her then (although she may find out from reading this blog) that what she is talking about is also a form of leadership, although not as flashy as being the person in front of the cameras all the time. I did tell her that I am proud of her for thinking about this. We will see where it leads.
So she explained. If there are too many leaders each trying to go in a different direction, you get chaos. What she was going to do was to find a leader who made the most sense, and follow that person and help him or her be more successful. If there came another leader who was better, she would move to following that person.
It is definitely true that there are more people (for example) working at a company than being CEO, and so it makes sense to prepare to follow people you believe in and follow them well. It is definitely true that at her elementary school where everyone believes him or herself to be a leader, there is a lot of chaos. I did not tell her then (although she may find out from reading this blog) that what she is talking about is also a form of leadership, although not as flashy as being the person in front of the cameras all the time. I did tell her that I am proud of her for thinking about this. We will see where it leads.
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