The Power of Following Before You Lead

在领导之前跟随的力量

Good Life Project

自我完善

2016-02-26

10 分钟
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I don’t like following, never have. Other peoples' rules and procedures and constraints and processes often don't sit quite right with me. I prefer to take my own path, follow my own rules. It’s why I was the “Lemonade Stand Kid” in my neighborhood—I wanted my own money, own responsibility. It's why I've been an entrepreneur the better part of my adult life. I enjoy figuring things out on my own, then leading rather than being led by others. But what I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten older is there are very real, very important lessons to be learned from being led by others, before you step in to lead yourself. Maybe my biggest awakening to the power of following before you lead came when I was rock climbing with a few partners in Rocky Mountain National Park, and various other destinations in Colorado. As the relative newbie in our group, I spent the entire time following my guide's lead. During the entire weeklong climbing adventure, I never once led a pitch (a ropes length of the climb that was many rope's lengths high). Those days, however, taught me more about how to eventually lead than almost any other experience. And, my classroom came with a 20-mile view and life-and-death terms. That's what we're exploring in today's short and sweet Good Life Project Riff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Hey, today I'm talking about the power of following before you lead.

  • So there's this kind of thing that happens with a lot of people, probably me included, and that is, I'm a bit of a rebel.

  • I don't like to follow other people's rules.

  • I don't like other people's systems.

  • One of the reasons why I have had jobs, I have worked in traditional companies.

  • I've worked in massive government bureaucracies and large law firms and, you know, technology companies.

  • But for the.

  • For the most part, I have worked on my own.

  • And that has been since I was a little kid.

  • Actually, I was the lemonade stand kid.

  • I was the entrepreneurial landscaping kid, and I've had my own companies on and off for the vast majority of my life and built my own rules.

  • And part of the reason for that is because I'm not an easy follower.

  • That said, I have come to learn that for certain things in life, that there's a really important reason to follow before you choose to lead.

  • And part of it is because when you're following, you gain the experience of what it's like to be led.

  • You understand the social dynamic that happens between you and the person or the organization that's seeking to lead you.

  • You understand, on a personal, a very visceral level, what's going right, what's not going right, what lands well with you and what makes you recoil or get angry, what triggers you and what lights you up in a good way.

  • And this is really important psychology to know for that moment when you choose to lead.

  • And that can be leading in business, leading in life, leading in your voice, leading in the work that you create, whatever it is and however you define it.

  • But there's another important reason that you may want to explore following before you lead.

  • And that is because those who are leading very often have spent years developing the skills and abilities to do things that you cannot yet intelligently do.