🫅 TREE 552: Leadership is overrated

Lob some people in a group and before too long someone will emerge as the leader. This is how we know that leadership is inevitable and essential to human society. But it’s not everything.

If it seems like it’s everything or at least the most important thing, that’s only because

• people like to talk about what they do

• leaders get listened to

and

• people like to organise their world in a way that makes sense to them

• the world of the leader includes their followers

An example:

I had a boss who was a graphic designer. He was good at his job, so he got promoted to run the studio. After his promotion, he spent all his time organising people and projects and going to meetings. His promotion made him less happy because he didn’t get to do design anymore. His reward for being good at his job was to have his job taken away and replaced with job he didn’t like. This only makes sense if you think leadership is the most important thing.

Society is organised for the thriving of leaders. But most people aren’t leaders.

Personal growth is interpreted through the lens of leadership. But there are huge swathes of life that don’t involve leading.

Often people who are good at what they do have to get outside mainstream structures and stop looking through leadership lenses in order to save themselves from being ‘promoted’ out of doing what they love. The FFOREST is stuffed with people like this.

(Shout out to Steven, Lyndsay, Katerina, Cali, Alison, Jess, Lynn, Tash, Jecelyn, Mark, Valorie, wing, the Streamline Jacks, Greg, Kamaka, Sue, Adam and a bunch more of you!)

If leadership isn’t your thing. That’s totally fine.

If you’re not already, today is a good day to become a fan of Metric.

I’m writing about not leadership this week.

Grow slowly
Jeff