The paradox of follow the leader

In NLP, there are many people playing follow the leader. To some extent that is inevitable. Neurolinguistic programming is a toolkit for observing and replicating success. It makes sense to use the tools to walk the path set by a leader.

Is that enough to model what made a leader worth following?

It is important to recognize that a leader didn't have a path: she made one. You cannot ultimately think like a leader by following in their footsteps: they didn't follow in someone's footsteps. To be a leader is to have the eyes and the heart to walk where there are no footsteps.

If you are training to be a better follower, it makes sense to train with an excellent follower, someone who offers a training exactly the way they themselves were trained. If you are training to be a leader, find someone who has taken steps into an empty field, someone who loves to look at fresh footprints and know they made them.

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