It is obvious from even a cursory knowledge of history that since time immemorial and in every society in the world, people have yearned to be led by someone that they perceive to be more powerful than themselves.
Religion, for example, is a manifestation of our need to be led in shaping our values and norms. God is all powerful (in all religions that I know of anyway) and he is the ultimate arbiter of our lives. His representatives on earth (priests in the Catholic faith) traditionally have a substantial amount of power which we afford them so that they can lead us in matters to do with God’s message to us as how we should live our lives.
At the bottom of the post where I discuss how societies evolve I mention that many kings and emperors told their subjects that they had similar status as God, or were chosen by, or had some special relationship with God. And people accepted it. This, of course, is an extreme and unhealthy example of manipulation by powerful people of our need to be led.
Our need to be led starts when we are children – leadership offers us security.
Our parents, teachers, leaders in youth clubs, managers in sports teams etc. all offer us leadership. They look after our interests, give us direction when we need it, as well as annoy us from time to time.
Perhaps, (as I described in the table in the Chapter on Energy on how we are conditioned to accept myths) the leadership we receive may be controlling and/or lacking in integrity, but our need to be led appears to be greater than our need to be true to ourselves – so believing the myths allows us to hang in there, have a relationship with our leader – and feel secure – regardless.
(At the end of the post about how we are conditioned to accept myth – link a few lines above – I mentioned how, when I challenged certain myths, I felt temporarily insecure; particularly in my relationships).
Our acceptance of others’ power (and leadership and then authority) seems to be part of belonging to the human family, and those who do not accept the need-to-be-led are often deemed to be eccentrics, or mavericks, and are often marginalised and side-lined in society.
Now I generally promote the benefits of self-organisation in groups of humans that set out to do things (and to effect change) but that doesn’t mean that such groups are leaderless!
Rather, the mixture of individual and collective responsibility that is part and parcel of self-organisation actually increases the challenge for leadership [1]. In self-organisation it may appear that no-one is wielding the traditional type of power that we associate with leadership – and self-organisation can sometimes be too close to chaos for most people’s comfort.
If we want something to happen, or indeed something to change, we need good leadership. Very often in organisations, rigidity, the opposite of the flexibility that is inherent in self-organisation, is needed to hold everything together and make things function because the people at the top have no confidence in (and/or have low expectations of) leaders at different levels of the organisation. Rigidity, generally, makes for bad leadership.
This is observed in dictatorships where a leader wields a lot of power and imposes rigid rules, which in turn provide security for the majority of a population, even though in doing it he has to suppress a minority of dissenters who won’t accept his authority. (In fact, thinking about dictators, generally speaking, if there’s a surge in support for some regime – or some individual – that we don’t want it’s probably because of lack of leadership in the regime that we do want).
But because of our desperate need to be led, bad leadership is better than no leadership at all.
When the dictator gets weak, or goes altogether (as happened in some countries in the social-media driven Arab Spring which initially promised so much and which, it was claimed – with some evidence – was manipulated by more powerful countries that had interests in the Middle East), disorder and confusion often follows.
The disorder happens because too many entities that are trying to seize power rush in, too quickly, to fill the power vacuum that society, like nature, abhors.
However, a critical mass of the population does not perceive, (or recognise) any of the entities to be legitimate in respect of leading them – so no leadership ensues – a recipe for disaster – and that’s another word that I don’t use lightly!
[1]. I visited a Greenpeace ship when it visited Limerick some years ago. One of the reasons why I visited was to chat with crew members on how the ship functioned. Navies (including the Merchant Navy) are noted for fairly harsh regimes – the rationale being that when out at sea all manner of emergencies are likely to occur and the harsh regime is necessary to ensure that everyone does exactly what they are told, and quickly. The Greenpeace ship was crewed by an international group of men and women and after a bit of hanging around I got to speak with the Captain. I asked him about the regime on board and to all accounts it seemed quite relaxed and yet up to speed on everything to do with safety of life at sea etc. I came to the conclusion that it could be relatively relaxed because every person on board wanted to be there, whereas many sailors in the Merchant Navy, (while probably having some hankering to go to sea at some stage in their lives) had totally different expectations and experienced (and were willing to accept) coercive leadership. Also I imagine that the class difference between officers and sailors in the Navy wouldn’t encourage the co-operation and togetherness that was evident on the Greenpeace ship.
(If anyone reading this has served on a Greenpeace ship – or similar – I’d like to hear your views to see if they are the same as the Captain’s)!