First step in Leadership: Don't follow!

What kind of arrogance is this?

The other day, I saw the old wolf-pack leadership post in my feed. For those of you who have not seen this, it depicts a pack of wolves, and the accompanying words describe the formation of the pack: the front three are the weakest to set the pace, followed by five security wolves who protect the front, followed by the main pack, followed by five rear security wolves, followed by a lone wolf, the leader.

My initial thoughts when I saw this, being a critical thinker, were along the lines of:

• They are wolves
• Primates have a different social structure
• Ants have a different social structure
• There are many social and organisational structures

Nothing wrong with the post, though. I wasn't going to post an argumentative comment.

Then I saw the post again, three or four times, with EXACTLY the same text.

Unoriginal thinking

I wondered... what is the post supposed to achieve? It can't be thought leadership if it is just a carbon copy of somebody else's idea or observation. Is it talking to leaders to influence their behaviour or is it talking to those who are aspiring to be leaders? Either way, why should a leader or an aspiring leader listen to somebody who is not demonstrating original thinking on any level?

The message is left open as well. The team is only as strong as its weakest members? The leaders should sit in the back office and watch everything that is going on?

Own your ideas

We are always encountering ideas and opinions that gel with us, and there is nothing wrong with learning from others – that is to be encouraged; however, shouldn't we at least explore why an idea has impacted us? When we share, can we at least take ownership of it in some way, use our own words, and say what it means to us - or doesn't. We may have something that adds value to the idea. Perhaps we are seeing it from a different perspective than others.

You want to lead? Stop following!

I started this post with "what kind of arrogance is this?" because I appreciate that some may think that. It is not that I am criticising followers. Neither am I suggesting there is no value in listening to others or taking on board the ideas of others when we are leaders. Life is about learning, having an open mind, and accepting that others are smarter than us. I once heard a lovely quote:

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" - Benjamin Disraeli

Leaders need to consider many things before they make decisions; however, the decisions they make are theirs to make. When leading a large group of people, the wise move is to at least acknowledge what they want to achieve and help them get there. They still have a responsibility to think for themselves.

This leads to another quote:

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." - Jack Welch

Critical thinking - thinking for oneself

Leadership starts with the self. If you can't take yourself to where you want to be - whether spiritually, materially or socially - how can you lead others? Where are you leading them to? We work on ourselves.

In order to do that, to develop ourselves and establish our true authentic selves, we have to separate our inner voice, the voice of reasoning, the voice of truth, from all the other voices that we are bombarded with (or have been bombarded with) from others, from memes that we blindly followed, from politicians, pundits, friends etc. We have to find ourselves.

Listen, learn, observe and grow

The only way we can do that is when we stop following, for to follow is to suspend critical thinking. Observe others. Learn from others. Don't think you know it all. That would be arrogance. But there is no reason to follow. There is no reason why we can't be like drops of water on a windowpane making our own way to the ground. Sometimes droplets join together - minds meet - and they move quicker together. Other times they move in isolation finding the path of least resistance or joining other paths that are helpful on their journey. Amazing what we can learn from watching water droplets - should I create a meme? If I do, please don't share without putting your own spin on it.

So, at risk of being shot down in flames - another risk of expressing our own thoughts - if you want to lead, the first step is to stop following.