We Follow You… Mostly Out Of Curiosity Though
It may come as some shock to you that I was never a born leader. Wait a second… there are people who may read this whom have worked with me in the past. In that case, then you would not be shocked at all. And neither would my parents, my friends, ex-girlfriends… okay, so it might not be a shock to many. But still!
When I am put in a position of leadership, by whatever freakish circumstance there is, I will admit that I am probably not the best choice for the position. I am moody, sometimes getting really irrational, sometimes confrontational, sometimes just wanting to run away… and the list goes on. There has only ever been one position that I was leading in that I have ever even been remotely good at, and even then I am not too sure of it.
One of the things I have learned in my few years out there is that in order to be a leader, you have to do some things differently than what you used to do. It works a lot like customer service, really: no one wants to know what the sales associate’s attitude is towards certain people; they want a sale. Anything less than this, they do not make the sale. Sales associate does not sell something, they get let go. The funny thing is that the same principle is true of leaders, whether it is business leaders (with the exception of Donald Trump), politicians, or something small, like leadership of a gaming guild or a gaming community.
Is his comb-over the source of his dark power? Or his wallet? …I think the former.
The Internet is a good example of a place where this is present. Generally, if someone is a friendly and courteous leader, they will have people follow them willingly. Some can see why a position of leadership is a position of power. In the case of the Internet, though, the position is usually granted to you by a few people. I, for example, can say things here and I have the power of writing this down because I know that, somewhere, someone will actually read this. According to some, this is a power. I think it is just that I might have something interesting to say and someone may want to read it. Whether they do or not is up to them. That is the way of the Internet.
However, some people who do have people elevating them to a position of power have to remember what comes with great power. This guy by the name of Peter Parker might have some idea, he got told it by his Uncle Ben who died tragically.
With great power comes great responsibility.
It is true, but really it is any type of power has responsibility for usage of said power. It is the moral thing to do.
Take, for example, the situation with al Qaeda. The leaders of the organization were given power by people who believed them, and then they took that power and twisted it into something destructive. Hitler did it too (and yeah, I just used Godwin’s Law), by shaping it up for the Germans being the master race and leading an attack on sovereign nations just because they could.
If you want less violent examples… let us examine the story of the douche bag Perez Hilton. Actually, let us not do that, because that makes me want to break a standard of decorum I decided upon for this space a while ago: I am not going to swear on here. Let us just say, it is already thoroughly covered and move on.
This is an accurate representation of a douche bag.
My original point was that people do listen to the leader of a group, and of all those above examples, the group does listen to those people. Osama still has followers, the leader of the Third Reich used his power to kill dissenters, and Perez has traffic to his site that I would love to see on mine (well, okay, maybe not the people per se because I do not want Valley Girls all over my comments, but you get my point). All leaders do have people that will listen to the leader, and they give them that power.
The question is… what does a leader do with that power? Do they take it and try to do good things with it? Or do they do evil with it?
Obviously I am not saying that we will get the next Hitler off of the Internet. We probably already have that at 4chan.org’s boards. What I am saying is that there is different things that a leader can do. Here’s what a good leader does:
- Stays neutral in debates and moderates the discussion
- Lets others vent their frustrations
- Acknowledges that there may be good points within negative feedback directed towards them
- Listens to and publicly respects the opinions of those they do not personally like
- Acting academically in discussions
- Be understanding of others’ emotions and different volatile relationships
Here is what a bad leader would do:
- Slanders someone who does not have power to further their own point
- Does not listen to the advice of others
- Publicly humiliates those directing negative feedback towards them
- Acting emotionally in discussions*
- Ignore the feelings of others
I do recognize that when I have had a chance to do some leadership, I have done the stuff in both the good and the bad columns. I am no saint when it comes to this, and neither is anyone else.
Not an accurate representation of me. I got a haircut and found my shoes.
I only acknowledge that the good leaders also acknowledge the things that would make them bad leaders, and they try to minimize that impact in their role. I guess you can summarize everything I am trying to say as: try to be good. That’s really all I want to get across.
Now, back to my other writing goals, and less blasphemy for me.
*This one can be taken both ways, really. On the one hand, how you feel about a topic does come into play when defining your own moral code, but on the other hand reacting to others’ points with raw emotions is a bad thing. It is a balance that should be reflected in a leader’s everyday life, and one of the defining characteristics of a good leader versus a bad leader. H-uh. I may have to analyze later.
