2013-05-31 – A hot topic in the adult-ed biz these days is leadership. No one is a follower. Everyone is a leader and they need to know how to do it.

I did a little looking into the topic a year ago when I was doing my masters degree in education. It turns out that a lot of the more cutting-edge training on leadership is done in the military. It’s pretty cool. But it has no applicability to civilian life. Here is why:

The military also trains in followership. It makes a leaders life much easier if followers know how to follow. As I said, this has no applicability to civilian life. In civilian life, everyone is a leader—or they are part of the worthless 99%.

You see this most vividly in politics. Republicans refuse to follow, no matter that they lose elections. And Democrats can’t even follow the leader who they supposedly support!

The problem seems to be the fear that, once you get labeled a follower, you are doomed to live that role for the rest of your life. What happened to the old notion that you start out as a follower, pay your dues, and eventually you graduate to leader status? Too military for you?