Willingness to lead versus unwillingness to be led

Six weeks ago I wrote about the importance of leadership to being an entrepreneur and my own deficiencies in that area, but I neglected to mention what had been one of my primary motivations for pursuing the entrepreneurial way: an unwillingness to be led.

I had gotten tired of working for people whose own leadership was not inspiring me. My immediate goal was to escape from being led.

In other words, it wasn't so much that my goal was to lead as that I had a very intense non-goal of being led. The flip-side of a reverse-passion for a non-goal is not a passion for the goal.

Alas, escaping from being led is not a great substitute for actually leading and I grossly underestimated the motivation, passion, discipline, and raw energy needed to actually lead rather than to simply avoid being led.

I do have a renewed interest in leadership, but I am unable to say with conviction that I have a passion for leadership. I can say that I have an appreciation for it, and a willingness to learn, but that's about it, for now.

And I can also say that I have a new tolerance for being led since I now know that unless I do develop a passion for leading, I really don't have anything to blame anybody else for.

-- Jack Krupansky