Why so many Leaders and Followers? Where are the Collaborators?
Whether the majority of people realize it or not, almost everyone seems to fit very well into the category of a leader or a follower. There is already a negative stigma attached to being a follower in the West. We are encouraged to have our own thoughts and opinions (or at least fool ourselves into thinking that we do) and value independence to a radical degree. We want to be the CEO. We want to be the organizer. We want to get on stage and to influence people directly. We want to exert our will upon this world. We want to be Whales that others look up to.
Leaders essentially use their power to impose their will upon their environment by whatever means they have available to them. It may be a youtube following, lots of money, a way with words, a good reputation, some kind of authority or strength, or a certain amount of experience. Leaders will capitalize on what they can in order to get what they want, whether it be personal benefit or changing the world in a way that they see fit. Some leaders can do great things.
But there is a fundamental problem with what we typically refer to as leadership. It's hierarchical in nature. It is a vehicle of dis-empowerment. Followers usually gain more power from helping their bosses, their idols, and their mentors achieve a greater level of power. You can see this very clearly at steemit with SP, popularity and the dynamics around them. We believe leaders are good and something we should strive to be but in order to become leaders we have to conform to some established way of doing something, essentially becoming followers. Our entire society and way of seeing the world is built around this kind of pyramid structure.
The little employees try their hardest to make their way up the ladder. The fans of a celebrity hunger to be noticed by their idol to taste just a bit of that recognition. Our doctors and teachers are revered as having answers that we ourselves could never possibly discover on our own. A restaurant with a lot of people will always attract more people with it's crowd. People invest the most into stocks which are gaining popularity and our monetary system works so that you gain the most by investing in those who become the strongest. We are always interested in what's "up and coming".
The users on steemit who are the most popular will draw in the most attention from new users so that growth is exponential. Essentially we are surrounded by pyramid schemes and so much of this comes the idea of leaders.
Of course many people will say that this is only natural but I believe that we have reached a level of development where this is no longer the most natural or beneficial mode interacting with the world. The main reason we have so many leaders and followers and that people do not often collaborate from an equal standing is that we have not built relationships built upon deep trust.
We don't believe anyone is capable of truly working with us of their own volition. We believe they should conform to our way of doing things or that we need to suck it up and conform to their way of doing things, and perhaps if we are ambitious, until we have enough power to have followers of our own.
We could easily be building communities where trust is deep enough that we don't need to have any leaders and none of us need to feel like followers. We could easily change the meaning of a "leader" to be someone who encourages others to think for themselves, have confidence and act collaboratively but in their own unique way. All we need is to believe that it's possible and to experiment. If we fail sometimes, so what? We can learn from our mistakes. It all starts with you and me.
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Good thoughts here.
``Strong people don't need strong leaders'' is a well known phrase. Meditating on this, I suggest furthermore: Weak people cannot be helped even by strong leaders.
And further mediation might suggest exactly what you suggest, that maybe even the behind the scenes leadership, even the weak leadership model, is not sufficiently effective or meaningful in large distributed systems we have today, even with strong people. And that people and projects need more collaborators — other people on an equal plane, and perhaps equally on several planes of abstraction at once.
The original argument for leadership was: 1) That organized minorities divide and conquer unorganized majorities, and that organization following any leader, even a random leader, is better than following no leader, 2) That such a relatively small number of organized individuals also have each large gains from an extraction they compel from a much larger number of others that costs all the others together as much or even more, but the other each of the other individuals suffers very little cost and has little incentive to counterorganize and resist the extraction, and what is needed is an individual that ignore the costs versus benefits calculation and performs most of the costly counterorganization, which the majority of others follow, a leader, 3) That somebody higher in a hierarchy relative to followers takes information from many followers and makes a much more abstract decision, given all the information, and having more resources than each follower, and directs the followers in a coordinated fashion, a leader.
The need for each individual to behave at multiple levels of abstraction and mesh at all the levels over a very distributed space however suggests those who can genuinely collaborate on a project can be even more effective. A leader cannot (and should not) operate on low level details and followers cannot operate at high abstraction and if both are required plus organization, a collaboration model might be the way to go — I speculate here. Otherwise there is the kind of stasis as some seek leadership positions and other follower positions but to get anything technical done and done quickly genuine collaboration is really needed. Agreed.
[Another long comment. I suppose I should expand it into a proper post.]
How very true. To truly lead the weak willed is to show them they are in control of their own lives.
I don’t like to see myself as a leader but this is certainly what I try to do. I would like to raise others to the same standing that I have, help them to wield their own power responsibly rather than hold any power over them or encourage them to gain power over anyone else.
You totally should make your own post out of this.
This is an interesting problem.
And i think it is very similar to the difference between rich and poor people.
It may actually be the same dynamic.
Collaborators are most often people who both can do the job on their own.
You can often see this with people who work as contractors. They have a collection of people to get certain things done for them. In essence, the collaborate all the time.
Now, what i find when i try to start a collaborative group is that i am not dealing with a group of equals. I am dealing with a bunch of people that need each step laid out for them. Factory workers, or ... followers.
I can't discuss the structure of the system, i can't get constructive feedback, all i can get is for them to follow basic instructions. I have not found a way to collaborate with this level of people.
I think it is the same dynamic, all just yin and yang energy acting as if it’s notntwo sides of the same coin, forgetting the yin in the yang and the yang in the yin.
That’s a really good point though, the reason most people can’t collaborate is that theybdont really have their shit together. It’s hard to have your shit together when you worship the experts and think it takes 10 years of formal study to learn anything useful though so it kind of a vicious cycle.
There are a lot of people capable of collaboration though, they don’t always meet each other though. If you believe they are out there I’m sure you’ll run into more of them. But as @tcpolymath said everyone has to understand each other’s goals.
Very well put. I do feel like the terms "leader" and "leadership" are often misconstrued and/or abused. People sometimes use it to take advantage of other to advance their own interests. I do want to live in a world, or at least be a part of a community where everyone is an equal.
Yes, I’m not really against the concept of “guides” but the concept of a “leader” carries with it many connotations of authority and a belief that “we need leaders” in order to be at our best which I know from experience is not always the case.
I find that the key for doing this in my own life has been gaining an understanding of other people's goals. It's something most people don't seem to make any effort at, to the point where I sometimes have significant trouble convincing people that I'm asking what they want for themselves because I legitimately want to know.
Functional collaboration rests on each party understanding what the other(s) hopes to achieve from the relationship. Without that there's a lot of stumbling around in the dark.
Very important point! One I should think about the implications of. I think some of us do this naturally and others think we are so damn intelligent when really we just paid attention to something that often goes ignored because everyone is so stuck in their bubble. Many are so stuck they don’t even know what theirnown goals are, and this may be where a lot of problems come from. People act against their interests when they don’t really know what their real interests are.
Asking about... no, being asked about your goals can be a trap.
There are many books that profess to never tell anyone your goals, because people like your family, are out to stop you from becoming great.
And then, there is the narcissists. (letting them know your goals is handing them the rope tied around your neck)
However, if one is going to collaborate with others, sharing of goals is the bedrock of that.
If you two (or more) do not share the same general direction for your lives, collaborating on anything but a small project will prove disastrous.
This is such a beautiful thing to say and share. It is so true. With deep trust on a team, everyone is able to collaborate and share the work...it also means that no one has to feel like they are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of a project...when something is a community effort everything just naturally flows. It's rare to find these communities and spaces, but they are wonderful when you do! Thanks for writing this and see you around.
I think everyone ends up feeling responsible for the work but not in a heavy way. The thing about this way of seeing the world is, it’s really rare right now and in the past but it’s contagious. :-)
To me this reflects the magic of decentralisation! The same can work with humans.
I want to agree but I think there’s a lack of focus on the words “decentralized power”, without it, I think decentralization does more harm than good. The existence of super whales makes decentralized power impossible, so I think some discussion is needed about how to adjust blockchain so that having too much of the pie is discouraged in a systematic way. Plus everything I said above, a change in culture.
I think choosing leaders and following them is a natural part of human nature. Humans have always chosen those they consider "the best" to lead them, in every culture in the world, ever. I don't think this is something that will ever change, but I like your sentiment of what a leader should be:
"We could easily change the meaning of a "leader" to be someone who encourages others to think for themselves, have confidence and act collaboratively but in their own unique way."
I do believe that's what a good leader does. Nice post!
I can understand that sentiment but to me it’s similar to saying “humans will never be able to fly” before the invention of the airplane, but the solution is less of an invention and more of a change in culture and expectations.
Leadership might be a concept that should stick around but the definition needs a serious edit, right? :-)
I agree with much of that said in this post. But am unsure how you really describe a collaborator. Me, some look to me for leadership in certain fields, others look for me to follow them in certain fields, and then there are the ones who find themselves on equal footing collaborating for certain goals. I never worry about any of all that particular. I've been alone ever since I was expelled from my first gang, school, college, university, institution, and any other group that wants to apply and impose unfair rules for no good reason. Alone I've stood for most of my life, and I'm cool with that. Some stand by me for awhile, or for a season. Some join me in the creating of, or straightening out of, or just for the fun of, but sooner or later every trunk branches, and so does every branch and eventually one finds oneself twigging off and separating into different flowers to fruit as separate seed containers. And, that's cool because then one becomes a new trunk and begins again, etc.
Keep on keeping on. 😇
Resteemed.
Loners who know how to work with others have it figured out I think.
Someone who knows more about a certain topic obviously can teach others about that topic. The attitude that “experts” always know best and it takes years to become an expert is in many cases just a way to reinforce power structures though.
The only expert I have in my workshop is she who dwells indoors, and makes a perfect cup of tea if one is pleasant. 😆 No, seriously, often I bounce what seems a bit cockeyed off her common sense and you'd believe she were an expert. The self-styled think they've little left to learn, and one who the Sergeants of the world look up to is the one I want working on any difficulty. Often, I've found the one well grounded who is prepared to pull a project apart and try putting it back differently is the expert, if only of the practicality, then, in mechanics there's another who weighs the components of the explosion and wants to try a kink in an old practice, tinkering and fine-tuning. Everyone is expert, but the trick is knowing which, for where, and when. One who has been told and paid as expert is usually falling behind the cutting edge already, by not practising. Learn skill by practising, yes, then get a different shape boat and different weight oars and learn again, etc. To play power games is to lose. Lose sight of why you learned what you learned, and lose sight of the power of selfless giving. May the blessings be. 😇
I was offline most of the last week or so, hibernating still. I saw your initiative just now and got excited, only to then see the issues that were happening. I don't know what level nerd you are, but it made me think of a qoute on a Magic card that I often think about when I'm trying to 'just create my garden' and help others have there sweet places also."This is the price of being last in the food chain. We must keep our places of beauty hidden away instead of displayed for all to see."
Hildin, priest of Avacyn
It is a huge source of frustarion for me in general to see how we always create these hierarchies. I get excited about so many projects or industries, and feel like I have a lot to contribute, but then become pretty disheartened when I see my ideas or talents almost always attract an energy of usage that is not really my intention. It's probably the main reason why I struggle with money as aconcept and execution: sometimes I just want to do things and be helped back and not always organize everything into this heirarchy or dominating economic view. Its tough to explain. But, I see and 100% feel your frustration as my own. Does the 'good' (intended use ) outweigh the 'bad' (unitended and possibly opposing use). You had mentioned brainstorming and if you add me discord, I'd be down to bounce some of these pro/con sort of things with you. Its just @kilbride on there, nad I'm still pretty noob status but I can operate the reply messages part lol