Several years ago, Lee Iacocca wrote a book entitled Where Have All the Leaders Gone? While I personally did not enjoy his book or believe that it contributed much to any body of knowledge, it did call attention to what might be a leadership crisis.
It is likely true that when we have strong leaders present, we become complacent, depending on them as our experts for many things, including how we should feel about issues. If there is a decrease in the number of leaders on whom we can depend for clear direction, and people are not stepping up to offer themselves as leaders for the moment and the issue, then maybe Iacocca is right. We will eventually be down to our last credible leader, at which time our social system just crashes and we are left to randomly exist without direction at all.
Such is likely not the case, but we do need emergent leaders surfacing all the time in order to fill the voids left by those who fall by the wayside or just become tired of running ahead of the pack. If the American spirit is really what we think it to be, it should encourage passionate people to want to lead for the moment on any issue that is critical to them and others. It is not necessarily important that we make public careers for our leaders, but it is important that our society encourage people to lead. This is the appropriate place for the emergent leader.
We have a tendency to discount the amateur’s ability to lead toward a positive outcome, but it is often these emergent leaders who move things forward, as they have no baggage to drag them down. They often don’t know enough about the “rules of leadership” to worry about breaking them, and are then not hijacked by the fear of what others think in their pursuit of the change they seek. These leaders might not be experts on issues, but with passionate understanding, they can depend on their hunches to guide them toward a positive outcome.
These emergent leaders need not be the sober and practical and commonsensical “leader experts” we usually see speaking out on an issue. Instead, they can bend to their wild and crazy intuition, causing others to want to listen and follow. These people are able to live up to their dreams of causing change to happen without having to worry about impending failure as they are able to fall back on the fact that they are “amateurs in the game.” Of course, no one likes to lose, and there is certainly a profound humility that is required when throwing oneself into situations that are uncertain. But the reward in winning is seeing problems solved—and having new ways of doing things become a part of who you are.
The greatest obstacle to an emergent leader is not inexperience but the illusion of failure. The realization that one might fail should not be a deterrent to those who want to make a difference. America needs leaders who are looking for that thrilling and immensely gratifying opportunity to start as a beginner and end up as a pro. With more people getting into the game of leading others, there should never be a crisis of numbers.
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