When You Choose to Follow and Not Lead

When you choose to follow and not lead you spend the night at home. Spending the night at home isn’t a bad thing, of course, but it’s not a good thing when you could have and should have been somewhere else. I should have been somewhere else tonight, but I chose to follow and not lead. Because, you know, somebody else will always step in to lead.The problem with that logic is that sometimes nobody else chooses to lead. And then you just have to go home.Most of the time….most of the time nobody else chooses to lead.As I write this, Linchpins are enjoying the company of other Linchpins. As I write this, Linchpins in other time zones are looking forward to enjoying the company of other Linchpins later on tonight. In each of these situations, there was a Linchpin or two who decided to lead. They decided to organize. They decided to take charge. Thanks to them, great things will happen tonight. Deals will be made. Friendships will be born. Ideas will be shared.And then there are the rest of us who waited for someone else to lead. We’re at home watching reruns of “Friends.”When you choose to follow and not lead you take whatever programming somebody else came up with. When you choose to lead and not follow you get to decide. Period.