The same coin.

Are you a leader or a follower?

“He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader”

Aristotle

I was excited. This was our first walk together. The previous evening, I had done a trial walk and knew this would be the best route to avoid the local strays. I attached the two chains and snapped them to her collar. We set off at a brisk trot, with Dad’s warning on the length of the leash ringing in my ears. I planned on keeping it at an amble. Tara had never walked before, so I assumed she would be slow. The aim was to introduce her to the locality, slowly. This was her first walk. She was excited. And she shot out of the gate like a bat out of hell. We flew across the road, straight into the empty plot of land next door and then through the bushes and into the thorns, and then from there across the road to the opposite plot of land and more of the same, bushes and thorns scraped my legs. I barely managed to reach the end of the street and gave up. I was done. My flip-flops were done. My legs were done.

With her tongue hanging rakishly at an angle out of her mouth, Tara was eager to go some more. But I decided otherwise and brought her back home. My bubble of admiration for her good nature had burst. Tara was a very sweet and docile dog when we brought her home. She was a year old, and she was very friendly. But she was not leash trained. And that was my lesson for the day. I was not going to follow Tara blindly across every valley and shrub she took a fancy to. Tara, on the other hand, looked happy to lead.  She was excited with everything she could smell in the air and was very curious about her new environment. But I was done following. Tara was my first dog, so I spent a lot of time with her over the next few weeks, where I introduced her to her new environment slowly. Tara learned to be a follower and I learned to lead.

I have never had any issues being a follower, I am happy for another person to take the responsibility and set the pace. But when it came to Tara, I wanted to set the pace. She was a big-sized puppy with no clue about her power. My work was very focused. Every walk, I learned a new thing she would require to be taught. Like not letting her walk into cow dung, because she always stepped in it, then she would turn around and jump on me. Or not let her walk even a couple of steps in front, as that would mean she was leading, and the shrubs and thorns were heading my way. It was a few months of concentrated effort from both of us and we were able to understand each other perfectly.

Tara honed my leadership skills. I had spent most of my childhood with my younger sibling and we had stumbled our way through arguments and discussions and big fat tears on who would lead. She had an aversion to being rushed, and I had an aversion to being late, and a compromise in this situation was always filled with a chaotic combination of frustration and tension. I could manage arguments and discussions, but tears were something I never mastered until the kids were born. Did you know that crocodiles shed tears when they eat?  Anyway, Mum always wanted us to be leaders. She would push for us to volunteer and participate in every event we could identify. And if we participated, then she would insist we do our best, because she wanted us to win. She would stand on the sidelines and cheer us loudly. 

“I’m a leader, not a follower. Unless it’s in the hills. Then you’re going first.”

My version of the EBC trek is very desolate. The beauty and majesty of the mountains are hard to describe using words, just like the isolation and desolation you experience while trekking through them. My perception of size and self-importance changed on that trek. I was one of the reasons we reached every tea house last, but I was also one of the reasons my siblings were always laughing on that trek. As the leader, I showed that you can survive an almost freezing shower in the sub10-degree climate on the hills. As the follower, my sibling chose to wash her face and remain warm for the night. As the leader, I stepped into the tea house washrooms to discover they were positioned directly above a flowing river. As a follower, she chose to ignore the view and just deal with the business at hand. It took a day, but I learned the lesson of being a good follower. I completed that trek with a sigh of relief because my siblings had led the way.

 So, when you ask me if I am a leader or a follower, I would like to respond with, “In the middle”. But I suspect I am more a leader than a follower. At home, when things require to be completed, I lead. While I am driving, the route, the music, the conversations – I lead. But, if there is someone else in that driver’s seat, I know how to keep silent and follow, with a lot of sarcastic rejoinders. I let the driver decide on the best route to take, after all the steering wheel is in his hands and if we reach our destination late, then I will always remind them about the exit they missed!