That's right, the best leaders are followers! May seem like a complete paradox, yet that is one of the greatest strategies and commonalities among the very best leaders.
Our world teaches us that leaders need to be self driven, powerful, in control, commanding, loud, persistent, and the list goes on. We seem to so incorrectly celebrate leaders that "WIN" at all costs. We know that leaders lead others to do what they want them to do, right? They don't follow anyone but their own will, desires and demands, right? Wrong, oh, so wrong.
When you study the very best leaders in world, you will find one common element in them all for sure, they were all led by someone else. If you survey the greatest leaders around, you will find that teach of them is able to, and willing to provide for you the name or names of the people that influenced their lives, their thinking and their success. You can call these people mentors, master/teachers, role models, yet in the end, the "leader" you are speaking to, was (and might still be) the follower.
Abraham Lincoln is credited by many as one of the greatest leaders and Presidents of all time. He notes that in his life, he was led and mentored by Henry Clay, a well known politician and leader in the United States. Even Jesus Christ had a leader he turned to every day, God the Father. He didn't act without God's directions, His wisdom, His will. Jesus is leader of the largest group ever assembled in the world, and people are following His teaching 2,000 years after His death. Yet, with all that leadership, Jesus was still a follower of God.
The examples are here to demonstrate that as a leader, you must learn and observe and model after someone. You cannot make it up on your own and just demand of others. The best leaders are following someone, and in turn, others will follow them.
Who is your leader or mentor? Who is the one you turn to for advice,
wisdom and council? Who do you know that has a road map of life and
leadership success that you want to model your life after?
