Lead or Follow?

For ever since we measured time much ado has centered around leadership.  Leaders are the ones that always make the press.  There are tons of books about the subject and variety of recognition follows the leader that gets identified as such.

I wanted to delve into the unsung heroes.  Well maybe heroes is too poetic or squishy.  How about the unsung?  Those that follow.

There will be no leaders without followers.  Let us get that straight.  So what it really means is that a leader is only good as the followers that follow.  You follow?

While inflection points in society occur due to some select few taking extraordinary risk there is also the momentum of the unsung that carries the ball across the finish line.

I was reading about the great inventions of the 20th century and names like Edison and Einstein and Jobs made the top lists.  That they deserve a huge level of admiration is a given.

But for all their ingenuity there was also a number of competing and comlpementary forces at work that drove their inventions to achieve the level of everyday use and acceptance that comes from a observant and obviously selfish audience. Those that follow.

It may not be worth an applause that people stand in line to buy iphones making Apple successful but that they aspire to to own one through some sort of enterprise is.  For most of those in line anyway.

So the question of the hour is - do you choose to lead or to follow?  The real answer maybe its a combination of both.  Some of this and some of that.  What or who you choose to lead or to follow follows a path that is customized to an individual.

Some do more of one and less of the other but in reality we all do both.  Yours truly is leading the charge in blogging about these inane topics and some of you choose to follow...