Let’s Play: Follow The Leader

Let’s play follow the leader!

When I grew up Follow The Leader was one of the many neighborhood games I played. The Leader spot (first in line) was the most fun. I loved being the leader and having my friends follow me. I’d try some strange moves to see if they would actually do them. I felt powerful as the leader because I got to decide what crazy thing we were all going to do.

There’s an important aspect to that game – you can only be the leader if you have followers.

The first lesson I learned playing that game was that I needed to follow. It was important for me to learn the rules of the game and the best way to do that was to participate. I’d follow different bigger kids and learn their leadership style. Only then could I develop my own. Experience is key here.

I soon realized there were kids I liked to follow and others I did not. The kids I like to follow were those that took into consideration their followers. If we had a kid following who was not as skilled as the others and the leader did something purposefully knowing the follower couldn’t do it and used this as an opportunity to bully then I was out. No following that leader again.

The kind of leader I liked to follow was one who was challenging, who made it interesting, who was creative. I also liked a leader to look back at us followers to see how we were doing and then decided the next challenged based on our abilities.

The leader’s attitude played a big role as well. Being positive and encouraging was huge. Knowing the leader was caring about us followers also huge.

When my turn came to be leader in the game I tried to lead this way. I looked back at my followers and if there was a little kid in the group then I tried to do movements that even he could do. It was important to me to make sure that even the little kid was able to participate.

Life lessons were being learned during Follow the Leader. Who would have thought!

What type of leader did you like to follow?

 

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