To Lead or to Follow?

Answer: When you lead from your heart you will find that you are both a leader and a follower and in doing so you will exemplify true leadership. 

I recently returned from a missionary trip in Ecuador.  Everyone had to step up and lead and everyone had to step aside and follow.  It is said that the learning leader outperforms the learned leader every time.  We were all leaders in our own rights and no one person held an expertise in everything.  Personal responsibility required one to abandon any negative-passive responses to frustration and replace it with positive energy and empowerment.  Is it not true that a journey starts with explicitly appreciating where you want to end up—the end in mind?  Embracing and living into a purposeful life will provide the essential foundation for persevering when challenges and roadblocks get in the way.

Often we get stuck on our own beliefs rather than seeking to discover the truth of a situation. We jump to conclusions because we don’t really listen, and such conclusions are often judgments of delusional thoughts that are based on what we think we heard. When we lead from a place of oneness we refrain from judgment, we are receptive to exploring truth—and more readily able to overcome the old subliminal fear of inferiority. We can then act from a place of true situational need.

When we move into the space of oneness with our purpose, a knowing that we are connected whether we lead or whether we follow, we free ourselves from the fear of being perceived as insignificant. We are able to use our skills and our hearts to listen, learn, teach, advise….to simply be what is needed in a given situation. While there are many statistics available that suggest effective leaders have higher than average emotional intelligence, I suggest that living a purposeful life and leading from a place of love is synonymous to that emotionally intelligent leader, one who just knows how to follow the footsteps of those before him and leave a path of footsteps for those to follow behind him….when we follow, we lead—the life of a leader, the purposeful life!