The Leader From Behind

The leader from behind always makes the choice to go last. This first occurred to me on a hot Northern California afternoon during the summer of 1992. I was 28 years old at the time and participating in a unique type of outdoor leadership training program called the "ropes course."

Like my other teammates who found themselves immersed in the physical, mental and emotionally challenging activities that day, I was wanting to become the leader from behind and find out what "made me tick" and learn why I responded to life's situations the way I did.

What occurred that day was to become a defining moment in my life because the leader from behind in the group sparked a new way of thinking about leadership. It was the day when I got a glimpse of what the soul of leadership really looked like.

Picture yourself standing side-by-side with two dozen other team members tackling the final leadership challenge of a long day. That was me. And my teammates and I faced a simple, yet daunting obstacle - the Wall.

Our goal was to get every one us over that 12-foot Wall safely in the time we were allotted. We had to accomplish this without the help of a rope, a ladder, or a stool. The only resources we had were our bodies and the leader from behind.

So the instant our facilitator said, "Go!" and the time-clock started, I immediately shouted: "Okay, I'll go first!" I wasn't the leader from behind. And I did. I climbed that Wall almost effortlessly with the help of a few of my teammates and within seconds I was up and over. Mission accomplished.

In contrast, the most influential and powerful leader in the group was a friend of mine who stood at the base of the Wall working diligently to help each of our team members to go up and over. He was not a "follow me" leader like me. He was the "lead with me" leader. He was the leader from behind.

I watched the leader from behind put our teammates on his shoulders and push them up to grab the top of the Wall. I watched him clasp his hands and launched team members up and over. I watched him arch his back so team members could step-up and leap onto the top of the Wall.

By electing to go first, I had chosen the leading from the front position, or the "command and control" style of leadership. Whether you lead this way on a ropes course or in the real world, I have found it to be an incomplete leadership style. It may sound paradoxical, but the leader from behind style is much more influential.

By choosing to be last over the Wall, my friend lived into the leader from behind leadership position that afternoon. He was what Lao Tzu meant when he wrote: "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: "we did it ourselves.'"