Lead Follow
2017/4/9
This post was directly inspired by a shirt text that I noticed at Walmart this past Saturday. And as I crossed paths with this shirt, immediately so many thoughts came into my mind. The first being how much I disagree with the message that this shirt delivers.
As you can see, they have both the words Lead and Follow written along the front of the shirt. Except follow is crossed out, while lead is put into large letters displayed above the follow. This is a message that many of us grew up with, particularly so if you grew up as an Asian-American with parents who strove to push you academically.
When you joined a school club, you were probably told that if you weren't a council member, the president, or the captain, then was it worth joining at all. Or that you needed to be the best, and that leading was the thing worth putting on your college application, because being a member just means you were part of it but didn't do anything. To me, that's what this shirt said.
But if everyone became a leader, who is following? If we are all told to pursue titles and headlines, who will be there to read them? At the end of the day, we will only have leaders fighting to have position and power over their peers, because THEY want to be the one leading, not following. Without followers, no work would get done.
Rather than telling our future generations that they should only be leaders and feel dissatisfied if they are not, let's tell them to find where they fit best in life. Sometimes, that means leading, sometimes that means agreeing with leaders, and sometimes that means being just a follower.
Let me show another set of images to show what I mean:
The first is an example of ducks waddling through a pond in a row. The leader is mom, while the babies follow behind. Ultimately, everyone is following the mother, but there's another element to it. Every ducking behind the first is following not just the mother, but a duckling. And no one has a problem with the order. No one is fighting to take control of a certain place in line, because not only are they satisfied with it, they know that the destination is the same, the place that mother is taking them. One day, each of these ducklings may come to own their own line, but at this moment and time, they are followers, and that is not a problem.
The second is a picture of birds in the V formation. Similarly to the ducklings, everyone is placed in a spot. Their roles are similar in structure, but their placement is different. Everyone is contributing to the goal of energy efficiency in migration. They have the same goal, same purpose, but their placement, function, and personal actions maybe slightly different.
Now everyone is in charge of their position at some point in life. People move on, pass away, and leave, and their place must be taken. But is it appropriate to kick someone out of that place before the appointed time? Maybe sometimes, but more than often, probably not. Instead of breaking down empires to build our own, let's build our empires to accomplish the ultimate purpose, whatever that may be.
I closing I will say this. Not everyone is meant to lead. Not everyone is asked to lead. And not everyone is needed to lead. Whether you own the title or not, you play an important role where you are, and without even realizing, you might be leading those behind you.