The Following Leaders on Medium

The gems to find in the midst of vain progress.

I remember one distinct moment during a career development course at a community college I attended 21 years ago when the professor asked us to stand up and do an exercise.

She asked the class to separate themselves into two groups; those who thought of themselves as leaders on one side of the classroom and those who thought of themselves as followers on the other.

This question came without warning at the beginning of the class, so we didn’t have time to think it through. The result was probably more sincere because of this suddenness.

For some context, the class consisted of about 30 students, mostly young adults under 21 YOA; I was about 21 years old. An interesting thing happened.

An Important Life Lesson in Social Perception

The vast majority of the class went to the leader side of the class and only two of us went to the follower side. I was one of the followers along with another young man. How awkward; then the professor focused on us followers and asked us why we thought we were followers.

Interestingly, she didn’t ask each one of the leaders the same question. It seemed she and the rest of the class were puzzled over our seeming submission to a lower…