Your people are the ones who make you a leader

If you’re going to lead, you need followers.

But how to make your followers follow?

Until they follow, they’re just hanging back.

So you create a path that leads them on their way. The detour, scenic route, and mystery are all tools that allow your followers to enroll as they follow you.

We used to do this with flags and flashing lights. Now it can be symbols, stories, and connections.

It’s a cycle, not a straight line. Because people don’t always do what you expect. And because change is not a straight line either.

The people you seek to serve don’t readily follow. That’s why they’re people who need to be served.

But those that would follow often fail to engage. That’s why they’re also the very people you seek to serve. If they would only enroll, they could help you lead.

And then, once they’re in sync, once they’re engaged, once they’re following, they enter a different world. It’s different because you led it to be that way. Because you taught them to want it that way.

Without intending to, you’ve created another cycle. One that takes them deeper into your world, one they lead and rely on.

This, I think, is the secret of those that would lead. To lead even when it seems as though you’re not leading anymore.

Your work isn’t in designing a path. It’s in planting the seeds of a journey, in making people aware of the choice they already made.