Who is a leader?

About a year ago, I started a two-part post about leadership, and of course I never finished it. Link to first leadership post. So here’s part deux:

When you imagine a great leader, you might think of military leaders like Pharaohs of olden day Egypt, with thousands marching behind him, willing to sacrifice their miniscule lives for his holiness. I kind of imagine the epic battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, Aragorn leading an entire army, the hero, leading by his greatness.

But here is the Tao Te Ching on leadership:

When his task is accomplished and his work done, The people all say, ‘It happened to us naturally.’

This runs counter to conventional beliefs about leadership. Which would claim that it’s about power. That it’s about dominance. That it’s about making your presence felt.

According to the Tao, maybe being a great leader isn’t about having strict control over your underlings. Maybe the mark of a great leader isn’t about the leader at all, but the people the leader serves. That’s why great leaders are hard to come by, because like anything else, it’s deciding other people are more important than you.

Here’s a story about a great leader to emphasize the point.

A couple summers ago I worked in a lab at Harvard studying under a well-known scientist who had hundreds of publications. Of course, when I first started, I didn’t know anything. I had much to learn, but my boss believed in learning by practice, so he threw me into the fire, and I was clueless. I had to take care of some cells, but I didn’t know anything about cell culture. It was almost 5 PM on a Friday, and I couldn’t find anybody in the lab, when out of nowhere Ryan, one of the technicians, asked me if I needed help.

Surely, Ryan was headed out of the lab, and he had something better to be doing than waiting around watching me learn the routine skill of feeding cells. But Ryan stayed, and sat with me for an hour. He talked me through it as if he were having fun, and his positive attitude took the pressure off of me. My first day in the lab ended without me getting fired, so that was a win.

In this situation I have to question, who was the leader?

My boss, who was the designated leader, chosen by society as the leader of the lab?

Or was it Ryan, who was actually around the lab and making sure the newest naïve member of the lab didn’t go home from his first day dreading his second day?

Or did my boss set the tone for Ryan with his own hard-working attitude?

As always, life is confusing.

from ken

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.