Follow the leader

As kids, we played this all the time. In fact, we jumped at the chance to be the one who led the rest of the group. So, what happened?

The hard part about taking action is that it isn’t something we are used to doing anymore. That has been stamped out of us. Meaning that we have been trained to be compliant workers: follow the rules, follow the steps, follow the map.

Leading is about throwing away the map and deciding which direction to take. We don’t want to mess things up and when we do the people around us look at who’s in charge to blame. This is the crux of leadership. Understanding which voices to listen to and which to ignore.

As kids, there was no wrong answer about where you wanted to lead the group. Perhaps, we should return to some sort of semblance.