Are We "Following the Leader" or Following Followers? - Kevin Bulmer

Remember that tune, “We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader. We’re following the leader, wherever they may go!”

It’s a catchy song, isn’t it? It’s from the original animated Peter Pan film, if I’m not mistaken, but I’ve got a question: Has anybody ever stopped to ask whether the “leader” actually knows and believes in where they’re going?

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It seems to me we’re pretty quick to slap labels onto things in our culture, and one word that gets tossed around a little too loosely, in my view, is the word “leader.”

Have you ever had it happen where somebody you’ve looked up to for a long time – someone you’ve turned to for guidance and relied upon to show you the way – has been revealed to, in fact, not have had all that good an idea of where they were headed after all?

The longer I live, the more I see how much time I’ve spent following people that really don’t know where they’re going or listening to people that don’t have much of value to say.

Elected official. Executive. Manager. Coach. Teacher. Parent. These are names and labels that many of us have. But that doesn’t necessarily make us a “leader.”

Taking responsibility for your own experience, owning your choices, understanding who you really are and then honoring that and living from that place with integrity … that’s being a leader.

Do we want to effect positive change? Then let’s stop waiting for somebody else to save us, and maybe take the lead on the one thing that we can control: ourselves.