It was a meeting they had made the mistake of inviting me to speak at. That in itself was not the mistake, except that I never know what will come out of my mouth, and that can make life exciting, except for my husband the lawyer, who is convinced people follow after me and are going to sock it to him good with lawsuits and injunctions and I don't know what, because he is a deep pocket and my mouth is a liability. He was overjoyed when I told him I wanted to write a blog.
I was introduced to everyone as I sat up there on the platform. I grew more and more uncomfortable as I was identified as a leader of this and of that. I had led this successfully and people looked to me as on the cutting edge of that; I mentor younger women and hurl mountains over the sun, inspire athletes to break world records and dog owners to brush the teeth of their little doggies. I was a leader.
That did it. I HATE being a leader. There are way too many leaders in the world and not enough people willing to pull weeds. Come to my yard. I will show you. Weeds galore. I am fat and lazy when it comes to weeds. That is HIS job, and dear is that a big enough hint for you? But I LOVE to do dishes. Sweep floors. Change di-dies. If you invite me over and cook me a nice meal I will do the dishes and clean the commode for you! It happens. Why? Because everyone wants to be a leader.
I told the crowd to ignore what she had just said. I said some of the above and went on. If there are no followers, leaders are useless. There is the strain and competition to become a good leader, which gets in the way of actually doing a good job. IMHO I have no leadership abilities.
At work I was rated one year on my leadership abilities, the god of the workplace. I don't want to be a leader, I said. He looked at me like I have two heads. I want to sit in my cubicle and code. But I was one of the few women they had. I had to be promoted. They were desperate. This was an offer. Climb the ladder. I hate heights. Happy am I. Don't want it. Don't need the money. Don't want to play management games. My career is shot. FINE. I am choosing deliberately to be a follower. I will be the best follower you have ever seen, except I want to be led. I want to be led by people who want to lead, not by people who are just interested in the next position or how good this project looks on their resume. I want to be led by people who care about the work and are fair when they give praise and criticism. I do not want to try to be the greatest of all. I want to be the least. Really.
I am not aggressive. I will not cut you off in the parking lot. With a friendly wave, I will let you go first. IMHO we need more people like that and less people who think the way to live is to claw their way to the top and then beat down anyone who tries to out-king them at king of the hill. And women have fallen into the trap of thinking that turning themselves into men is the way to go, to fight and scratch and boast and play golf and make friends with people they don't really like, and get into what C.S. Lewis called the Inner Circle. We don't have to win. We do not have to play that game. We can be ourselves, and that is tremendously liberating.
I was introduced to everyone as I sat up there on the platform. I grew more and more uncomfortable as I was identified as a leader of this and of that. I had led this successfully and people looked to me as on the cutting edge of that; I mentor younger women and hurl mountains over the sun, inspire athletes to break world records and dog owners to brush the teeth of their little doggies. I was a leader.
That did it. I HATE being a leader. There are way too many leaders in the world and not enough people willing to pull weeds. Come to my yard. I will show you. Weeds galore. I am fat and lazy when it comes to weeds. That is HIS job, and dear is that a big enough hint for you? But I LOVE to do dishes. Sweep floors. Change di-dies. If you invite me over and cook me a nice meal I will do the dishes and clean the commode for you! It happens. Why? Because everyone wants to be a leader.
I told the crowd to ignore what she had just said. I said some of the above and went on. If there are no followers, leaders are useless. There is the strain and competition to become a good leader, which gets in the way of actually doing a good job. IMHO I have no leadership abilities.
At work I was rated one year on my leadership abilities, the god of the workplace. I don't want to be a leader, I said. He looked at me like I have two heads. I want to sit in my cubicle and code. But I was one of the few women they had. I had to be promoted. They were desperate. This was an offer. Climb the ladder. I hate heights. Happy am I. Don't want it. Don't need the money. Don't want to play management games. My career is shot. FINE. I am choosing deliberately to be a follower. I will be the best follower you have ever seen, except I want to be led. I want to be led by people who want to lead, not by people who are just interested in the next position or how good this project looks on their resume. I want to be led by people who care about the work and are fair when they give praise and criticism. I do not want to try to be the greatest of all. I want to be the least. Really.
I am not aggressive. I will not cut you off in the parking lot. With a friendly wave, I will let you go first. IMHO we need more people like that and less people who think the way to live is to claw their way to the top and then beat down anyone who tries to out-king them at king of the hill. And women have fallen into the trap of thinking that turning themselves into men is the way to go, to fight and scratch and boast and play golf and make friends with people they don't really like, and get into what C.S. Lewis called the Inner Circle. We don't have to win. We do not have to play that game. We can be ourselves, and that is tremendously liberating.