Leadership

About a year ago I had a very clear idea of what I thought about leadership.

I rejected it.

I was anti leadership, anti dominance, anti suppression, anti abuse, anti making someone else do what I want and anti one has a higher position then the other.


Since then my perspective has changed a bit. I still don't want suppression, abuse and dominance. I want a relationship based on trust and joy/willingness.

But where I'm at now I'm wondering whether there is a kind of leadership that I would be okay with.


My thinking about leadership went away from only horse-human relationships to also human-human relationships.

I thought about what it means to be a human lately. I used to reject and  try to deny the fact that I'm human, that I am part of this specie. I couldn't find any benefit to the world in the existence of humans so how could I then aim to become a grown up, an adult, a fully integrated part of the human culture? Supporting it and living a life like that myself?

I don't have the answers yet but I realized that I first have to accept it. That came with the "being enough". We have to accept ourselves the way we are. With all of what that means. There are some things we cannot change so we need to accept them. There is absolutely no use in fighting against it, in fighting against our own nature.


Okay, so I'm human. What does that mean?

There's two things that are important to me in this:


1: we are social beings. That means that we live in a culture with social structures. Each and every being has his or her place in our social system. And we are happy when we know where our place is. What are we allowed to do? What mustn't we do? Are we in a leading position? Are we a follower?

We have leadership in our human system and I understood that leadership can be comfortable. It can feel good. No actually, I believe that we NEED leadership to feel good. If theres no leadership there's chaos. Not to know our place is uncomfortable. It's so stressful. Because we constantly need to figure out who we need to bear up against and whom we can hand over some responsibility. We don't always have to be happy with our place and we can fight for a new one but we cannot fight the system. The system is not there to give power to some and suppress others. It is our nature and it is there to comfort us and give us security. It is there to help, not to punish.

Once I understood this I understood that leadership itself is not about power. It is about responsibility.


2: What does it mean to be human? What is our purpose? What are we here for and how can we serve?

The answers to this are not as easy as in no1. I don't know the answers. I don't know if anyone does. We can only speculate. So what if, what if we are here to take responsibility? What if we are here to care for others, to help others, to take responsibility?

I don't know where this thought comes from but it actually feels good. Having responsibility is not an easy job and we all know that there are hundreds of examples where humans failed in it, where we've made mistakes. But that's okay. We don't have to be perfect. We can fail. And try again. And maybe fail better the next time.


I understood that leadership is nothing bad in itself. The key for me really was to understand that leadership is not about power but about responsibility.


Unfortunately the fact that it is not about power in its very essence doesn't mean it is not used that way. I guess I have seen it used like that too many times so that I struggled to keep separate the terms of dominance, leadership, power and suppression. It seemed to be all one, not able to exist without the others. And because I reject the others I had to reject leadership, too.


But now, that I see the concept of leadership in another light I can accept it. Now I can start to explore it.

What can we do with leadership and where can we use it? Where do I want it and where not? How do I have to lead to be a good leader? And what do I want as a follower?


As a follower I want respect. I want trust. I want choice I want purpose and I want joy.


I want the respect to be seen as an equal. Following the leader doesn't mean giving away my voice, my dignity and my right about myself.


I want trust. I want to be able to trust the leader. Trust that she/he bears the responsibility responsibly.


I want choice. I want freedom and the possibility not to follow.


I want purpose. I only want to follow when there's a purpose in doing the things I get asked to do.

And I would like joy. I want to happily follow. I want to like to follow. It doesn't always have to be fun but knowing that there's a reason why brings happiness/joy.


And as a leader I want to give all of that to the follower. Because I want the follower to be happy. I want a follower that actually wants to follow me. In every moment. I want her/him to put her trust in me and trust me/my skills. And I want respect, too, I want to be seen, too.


And then there's the question about when/where do I want leadership?

Do I want it in my human friendships?

Do I want it in my relationship to horses?

But I'm not gonna answer these questions now. That will be another post.


Might be that this is nothing new to you, might be it is. I don't mean to teach anyone, I write these texts for myself, too. And if you find any value in reading it, great! If not, okay!

I'm happy to read/hear your thoughts.

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