Followers get the short shrift in leadership-land. As if they’ll blindly follow you, like sheep. As if they’re unworthy of a mention and indistinguishable.
Would you say that about these cuties?
You’ll have to go to Taiwan to see them – I was there earlier this year doing the tourist thing. Several months later, I still consider them a happy snap worth sharing.
And you don’t have to look too hard to see that these sheep are all different.
You Choose
Even if you’re a leader, you’re a follower too.
That doesn’t mean you’re a sheep. Or a corporate prisoner. In fact, you get to choose who you are, who you become and which parts of yourself you reveal.
As Erving Goffman, the brilliant sociologist said way back in 1961:
“Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull”.
You choose when you conform and when you resist… and how… anything from courageously challenging decisions to privately checking out.
How do you resist the pull?
