Leader
Definition from http://www.dictionary.com/: leader \Lead"er\, n. 1. One who, or that which, leads or conducts; a guide; a conductor. Especially: (a) One who goes first. (b) One having authority to direct; a chief; a commander.
A leader makes up the rules and does what they, themselves, want to do. They think for themselves. Leaders lead others into projects. They tell people what to do. Leaders make up their own organization methods in their own creative way. Leaders may need others to help them get the job done, but do not rely entirely on their services. Most likely, you would need to know what you are doing to lead, or you could just find weak people to follower whatever you do. To learn how to be a leader one needs to follower other leaders.
During this project I was very much a leader. I made up my own project and tried to follow through with it. I did what I wanted to do and found people who were willing to follow me and work with me. On the 15th of March I delegated authority. Colleen Blackburn agreed to find out more about Girl Scouts badges and if there were any that helping animals could get them. She was going to decide whether to take a Girl Scout trip to the Humane Society or a group of regular people. That later took a turn and was taken out of the project because of its impossibility. Later on I asked people to take my survey and a few of them did. A few of those people said they learned something from the information I gave them. I have been a leader.
Follower
Definition from http://www.dictionary.com/: follower n 1: an ordinary person who accepts the leadership of another [ant: leader] 2: someone who travels behind or pursues another
A follower follows other people. They do not know what they want, so they follow what other people are doing. They most likely do not have a great enough ability to think for themselves. Followers may help with projects already in progress and do what they are told to do. Most often you need to be a follower before you can be a leader. You need to learn and gain experience so that you may be able to show others how to do things.
Through this project I have been a follower. I have followed the papers I was given in the beginning about this project. I also accepted advice I received from the many people I spoke with. I also followed my feelings and thoughts to do what I thought would be best.
Both
Leaders and Followers need to work together. They both help get the job done. One is easier than the other, but they are both necessary. I have been both of these while doing my project. Our community needs a variety of people. Some need to be leaders and some followers. They both benefit our society greatly. The head of a computer industry is a leader while at the same time, he has a boss and that boss is following the inventor of the computer who used someone else's information to build his computer and so on. The people who work for him are followers. Those followers may also be leading other people. They may have families at home in which they need to support or he just may be broke and needs a job. The leader, boss, or manager makes the plans and tells the people what to do. The followers follow and do as he/she says. If they do not, the leader may fire them. In every job that must be done, there needs to be a plan along with people to carry out that plan. One person cannot do everything himself. These leaders and followers drive our community. Without leaders, there would be no teachers, presidents, or even law. Without followers, there would be no children, no workers and nothing to do. Without either of them, there would be utter chaos. There would be no rules, because no one (leader) would make them and there would be no one (followers) to follow the rules. Who would the president lead without followers, who would lead us without a leader.
Communism is just about the clearest example of leaders and followers that I can think of. There is a head honcho man who controls everything. This does not happen within my community, but in some other parts of the world and in history it is apparent. The people he has within his community are followers. They do as he says and nothing else. In my community there is democracy, in which we can choose what to do or not to do, at least much more than in a communist state. The citizens choose the rules to follow and the leader who will enforce those rules. There is also religion, in which there are leaders and followers.
Many religions have leaders such as "God", "Jesus", The "Pope", Greek/Roman Gods "Rabbis", and "Buddha" among others. These are icons and leaders that bring religion. Without religion, many people would not have anything to look forward to or to strive to be. These "icons" and religions have books and rules in which they are based upon, those are followed by their believers. For example Jesus was a Rabbi who taught what he believed was right and wrong. Then the people he taught, followed in his beliefs and taught other people of the same ways. Today in our community, there are still believers who follow those same paths and teachers, who those believers, look to for guidance.
We also have all kinds of people giving us advice and telling us what may be right or wrong and giving us someone to look up to. Some of those people are guidance counselors, advisors and television personalities, such as Oprah. There are also books that people read in order to find someone or something to learn and follow. There are also other issues, such as vanity that include leaders and followers. In our community there are many magazines and televisions that show us people who are abnormally good looking. This creates an icon type world where people want to look like the people on television. There are people that see the movie stars and try to look like them. They are following those stars. The stars are then being leaders and people to follow. In every instance we are being a follower and a leader.
Myself as a Leader and Follwer
om this project, I have learned a lot about leaders and followers. I thought about how being a leader or a follower benefits or concerns myself personally. First of all, I myself needed to come up with a project on my own. By doing that I would follow the guidelines given to me. I would also need to think for myself, or be my own leader to follow through on a project I started. By working with other students, I found myself being a follower and leader at the same time. I was trying to lead, but the other students did not accept my leadership and would not follow me. None of them took the leadership, so I did not follow them. Throughout this project I have tried to meet with Colleen and Shannon in order to work together on something. I have had little success. This has taught me a lot about myself and how I am a leader more than a follower. Thought I tried to be a leader, neither of the students would follower me. When I gave them the choices and told them to decide something, no one did. It felt bad when they would not want to listen to me. It also felt bad when they would not decide anything, because I knew it was a requirement for this project. Both ways I felt bad. I decided for myself to do my own project and help them as much as I could. I found information for Colleen and gave it to her, and I helped Shannon go to the Humane Society. One point, I was the leader. I planned a trip to the Humane Society. I asked the other students if they would like to come, and they both said they would. Soon Colleen changed her mind, and did not go with us. This would make myself a follower. Shannon did say which place she wanted to go to, and I agreed, making me a follower then. While we interviewed the officer, we were both being leaders. We were benefiting each other by asking questions we both would benefit from. We took turns. On the tour, we followed the officer around the Humane Society. This made us followers. I like being a follower more than a leader. It gives me sense that I am doing something for myself while also helping others. I also like being a follower. I do not need to do most of the work, but I get a lot of the same benefits, for example if either one of us took the leader and talked throughout the whole interview and the other just stayed back, the one left our would still get the information and would be using the same resource, they would just be being more passive. The speaker would have gained experience of speaking to someone and conducting the interview. I believe it is important to let both people do what they want to do and no one is more of a leader than a follower is. We should just be equal and have equal say in everything we do. Sometimes though, in life, this does not work. One needs a boss, to look to in order for advice and some kind of job to do. Since this is not a perfect world this gives order to chaos. Soon I will be a leader and teach people what I know. Right now I like being a follower and passively watch people, this way I learn. When I know what I am doing and can take the lead, it is nice to have power. I also do not like being told exactly what to do. I like having choices. Sometimes though, I need someone to give me advice. This is the good part to being a follower, until they are wrong, and then I know they should not be a follower and I don not follower them anymore. I also like giving people advice. It is only fun when I am right though. Throughout this project I have been very much a leader and a follower both. I followed what I wanted to do and led myself to finishing my project.
