The Other Type of Leadership
When it comes to leadership, there is the cliché of doing the right thing for others to emulate, acting perfect for others to see and learn, speaking right, and doing right.
Due to these standards, I’ve always considered myself a follower instead. I didn’t get into the University right after school, didn’t get the perfect grades in my first year, I didn’t make the regular type of friends with people of my age group — and so on.
Everything was different.
So I thought I was the worst lead for my siblings, the worst firstborn to my parents. Every title that held me accountable to something or someone fell short as I thought I wasn’t delivering.
But in all of these, the pain, lapses, suffering, and imperfections all meant something I didn’t know about. Which was that I was clearing the slate for others to tread.
These delays meant they knew better than what not to give too much of their strength to or know what to expect at least.
The imperfections meant one could propose and God will dispose and so to leave everything to him after doing our very best.
The suffering meant they knew what to avoid.
The pain and how I handled it make them understand how humane one can get.
Nobody ever talks about the wrong side of things for others to avoid. The mistakes, the wrong turns. But this is another form of leadership. Where you burn so others don’t, where you tread so others avoid, where you misdo so others course-correct.
That’s what true leadership entails.
The ability to teach others through several grinding what the other side of life is. Whether it’s to inform/ educate them or purely to alleviate the stress they’re likely to go through.
That is why people who have had it hard such as Viktor Frankl who survived the holocaust, Oprah Winfrey who survived abuse in many forms, likewise other pioneers of novel sufferings and survivors.
Nobody talks about this type of leadership because it’s uncomfortable to delve into. Talking about it invalidates and challenges “normal” mediocre lives.
A true learner and lively person won’t be hellbent on the perfect aspects of things to emulate all the time. The person reads in between the line and fathoms how the downsides of life have shaped one.
I tend to learn from others’ mistakes, stories, and experiences. I might never get to experience what they have gone through, but I don’t disregard it in my quest to grow and develop.
I think this is what true leadership entails. The ability to grind so others learn from it to grow and develop properly uniquely. And it’s only when we start to embrace the good and bad sides to a person’s experience would we be ready to grow, but most importantly acknowledge that most people bleed to lead.
