Sometimes The Best Way To Lead Is To Follow

Thoughts on fluid leadership and how I hope it will save us (sometimes I get carried away)

Image by Daniel Mena

I recently wrote about the Peter Principle and proposed lack of hierarchy as a solution. Some people swear by hierarchy and can hardly imagine a world without it. Some of us struggle with hierarchy and barely survive in a world ruled by it. Regardless of where you sit on the matter, I think we’ll find in leadership our common ground: leaders are needed even in the simplest and most anarchic of communities.

Our lives are tremendously affected by leadership, even when we don’t call it so, even when we aren’t aware of it. Almost every home has a leader, every under-10 after-school football team has a captain… everywhere we look we’ll find someone leading. It’s not always someone who wants to do it, either. Many leaders would rather not lead, but lead they must, because leadership is required if anything is to function.

Leadership isn’t a synonym of authority. How many households have been led by women even in sexism’s darkest hour? Similarly, there are companies that are kept afloat thanks to unexpected leaders with no managerial role but all the skills, respect and enthusiasm necessary to move everyone else forward.