Following Is Not Leadership

Metaphorical Narrative

Following is the practiced echo in an empty hall. You repeat footsteps not because you chose them — but because the watcher once applauded compliance. The echo becomes identity.

Core Insight

Following is the ego’s trick to remove risk by outsourcing choice. When you follow automatically, you abandon responsibility for outcome and feel briefly safe. But the cost is agency — your life fills with someone else’s steps. The longer it continues, the more you believe you are incapable of leading.

Ownership breaks the illusion by proving you can choose, however small. Scheduling two self-led tasks, and completing them without permission, provides living counter-evidence. Each choice expands your sense of capacity. Over time, following becomes optional instead of automatic.

Saturday Experiment

Put two tasks you choose (not assigned) in your calendar. When the urge to follow appears, say: “This is a role play,” then do one self-led task now (even if small). Record the felt difference.

Sunday Reflection

• Which choice felt uniquely theirs?
• How quickly did the following impulse loosen when met with self-led action?
• What evidence shows they can lead small things for themselves?