Why do many folks play follow the leader even into adulthood?

Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ALostInquirer@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

By this I mean, organize around some single person for leadership, or in other contexts focus on a popular figure. Even societies that tend to be described as more collectively-organized/oriented tend to do this.

People are people and are as flawed as one another, so this pervasive tendency to elevate others is odd to me. It can be fun and goofy as a game, but as a more serious organizing or focal principle, it just seems extremely fragile and prone to failure (e.g. numerous groups falling into disarray at the loss of a leader/leader & their family, corruption via nepotism and the like, etc.).

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

hightrix@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Leadership is hard. Really hard. It is very easy to be a bad leader, hence the common perception of bad managers. Everyone can identify bad leadership, but ask someone what makes a good leader. It is hard to define and hard to do.

Leadership also requires taking responsibility for others. Many people do everything they can to avoid responsibility.

Put these two factors together and it becomes pretty obvious why most people shy away from leadership. It is hard and when something goes wrong it is your fault.

source
- whofearsthenight@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Everyone can identify bad leadership
  
  Even this I think is a little questionable. People frequently mistake their failures as failure of leadership.
  
  source
  - hightrix@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re absolutely right. That’s a third point that I could have mentioned. Very good point.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Got my first taste as a kid leading the pack, alpha nerd.
  
  Summer mornings I’d pick up the phone and school phone book and start dialing, or I’d get called first. It was on me to decide what we would do that day and get it together. Herding nerds is a hella thing. If we had fun, great! If the day didn’t work out? All on me. And guess who was the default dungeon master?
  
  It quickly got to the point where I was responsible for our fun. Now translate that into leading a company’s success.
  
  Lemmy: “CEOs are useless and should die in a fire!”
  
  source
  - Iunnrais@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hey, I’m pretty darn leftist (democratic socialist, not tankie) and pretty opposed to the current state of affairs regarding CEOs, so I feel this is targeted at me… and yet totally misrepresents the position.
    
    CEOs are not useless. CEOs absolutely set the “tone at the top” and create the entire culture for a company. At the same time, CEOs do not work 400 times harder than the average worker, yet that is what they are paid. CEOs are also capable of doing great abuse to those beneath them, and have next to zero accountability for it. CEOs are kings in their little fiefdoms, and I say down with all monarchy. Note that “down with kings” does not mean “down with leaders”, nor does it say or even imply that kings aren’t leaders, or that leadership is useless to have.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For sure, and I failed to really get at this more in the OP, but it’s because of those difficulties that in part made me wonder, “Well, what’s an alternative look like?”
  
  Individual leadership in particular seems primed for either abuse from above or below (i.e. a scapegoat for people’s avoidance of responsibility).
  
  source
- TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yep, well said. For OP’s question… It’s pretty common to see a leader bring his whole group with him/her wherever they go and people follow because having a good leader is pretty tough to come by. I know a lot more people loyal to a particular person than a particular company.
  
  source
CaptainFlintlockFinn@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because it’s easy. You don’t have to think for yourself if you let someone else do it.

source
- Nollij@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Equally important is that, depending on context, leading or forging your own path is hard.
  
  source
mojo@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Are you just confused on why leaders exist or something

source
centof@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nearly every organization a person from ages 5-25 is hierarchical. There is always a authority figure you have to at least pretend to listen too. And if you tick off that authority figure by doing something they don’t like, they punish you in some form.

So people learn to ignore authority figures as much as they can and rarely challenge them directly as there are usually consequences for challenging someone in certain contexts. This leads to everyone pretending to agree and pretending to care about what leaders care about to avoid conflict. It is simply easier to cater to those who can and will make your life miserable than to challenge them successfully without creating grudges that might come back to bite you.

It is also worth noting that we are never taught to lead others, We are just expected to figure it out by trial and error or not figure it out at all.

TLDR; It’s learned behavior from the institutions we are exposed to. It’s easier and more encouraged to follow than to challenge authority figures.

source
- pg_sax_i_frage@lemmy.wtf ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  just to add to this. there is, although seeing it thuroihly implemented is comparatively uncommon, the practicea of ‘democratic eduactiin’ and ‘selfddirected education’. The sudbury valley school in massechusets is kne relatively well known example of this.
  
  In those contexts, the trends are in many ways, turned on their head. They ahve a website, and a a youtube channel, accesible vía That froendly alternative frontend that I can’t rember just now, with interview with some alumni of the school, and some. published books with accounts from other graduates.
  
  Just wanted to add, that the phenomenon described with in the comment replied to, although all too common, are not universal., nor always are they the only option.
  
  source
  - centof@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Just wanted to add, that the phenomenon described with in the comment replied to, although all too common, are not universal., nor always are they the only option.
    
    Great point. The link provided looks interesting, I’ll take a look at it.
    
    Side Note: The spelling mistakes in the first and second paragraph kinda detract from your message about different ways of organizing education. It is pretty ironic to have a post with multiple misspellings recommend a different way of education.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We are social animals.

source
- Luke_Fartnocker@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I may be an animal, but I am NOT social.
  
  source
  - CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    but I am NOT social.
    
    Said to another human while using a service that is designed for social interaction.
    
    You might be awkward in public but you’re still human.
    
    source
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A lot of people don’t really understand how things work. Rather than try to understand, they latch on to someone who does understand. In return for their loyalty, they get a path up where they won’t threaten the boss in charge.

source
- ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  A lot of people don’t really understand how things work. Rather than try to understand, they latch on to someone who does understand.
  
  Wouldn’t it be more apt to say that a lot of people latch on to someone who appears or acts as if they understand how things work, given the thinking that a lot of people simply don’t understand to begin with?
  
  source
  - Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Definitely. If you don’t understand how the world works, you can’t tell if someone else does either. Only experts can easily spot fake experts. And that’s exactly the trouble with things like pseudoscience and misinformation; it’s easy to fall for without the domain knowledge necessary to avoid falling for it.
    
    source
  - MelodiousFunk@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    A perfect example is this guy from my last job. Thought himself a leader. Thought himself knowledgeable. Always had an answer, regardless of actual facts. Alternated between barking out orders and lamenting on how he had to do everything himself. Constantly getting schooled by people who actually knew the subject matter. Those who had been around just kinda put up with his BS because he filled a position that nobody else wanted.
    
    Enter new management, who was very impressed with his authoritative tone, apparent breadth of knowledge, and willingness to lick boot. Suddenly management is bypassing dude's bosses to go straight to the horse's mouth and get the straight dope (which often involved taking credit for other people's work and bus-chucking whoever was handy). All because someone who barely knew what he was talking about spoke confidently to people that had no idea what was going on.
    
    source
  - HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah, it would be.
    
    source
- Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  A great example is when you’re in elementary school and you get that one really athletic kid on your team for some team sport in gym class. You know you’re not on that level and never will be, so you tie yourself to them, knowing that them succeeding is good for you.
  
  Likewise, we like to attach our fortunes to a designated person, and they become greater than just a person in our mind. Like, that athletic kid is not longer simply a kid who’s good at sports; they’re the athletic kid. Our favored 19th-century political thought leader is no longer just some person who had opinions on society and wrote them down; they’re a political messiah.
  
  source
- andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is the best answer so far in my opinion
  
  source
glimse@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is such a deliberately charged question with so much inherent bias. Please don’t let this place become r/nostupidquestions

source
- ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How might you put the question otherwise?
  
  source
  - glimse@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Human civilization has tended to always have a hierarchy with a leader at the top. Is this a natural phenomenon or a learned one?
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
blackbrook@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Asking why like this has the implicit flawed premise that human behaviors like this are products of conscious thought. They are not. (I don’t mean this as a criticism of you particularly, it is inherent in our culture to look at everything humans do as if it were rational and conscious, despite the reality that so much is it is not.)

I’d answer this by saying it is human nature. Most people don’t think about it and are not aware they are doing it. Many might even deny it. This is not to say individuals can’t stop and reflect and be conscious and rational about. Some do but most don’t.

source
- fubo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Asking why like this has the implicit flawed premise that human behaviors like this are products of conscious thought.
  
  This is not generally a flaw. We can ask “why?” questions about lots of natural processes that don’t involve conscious thought. For example, a lot of plant growth follows mathematical patterns; the “why?” is that this optimizes the use of space or of sunlight, so it’s favored by evolution.
  
  source
  - blackbrook@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Oh I agree with you. I didn’t mean asking why was flawed, but specifically asking why with the implicit assumptions we tend to carry about human actions being rational and conscious. I agree that asking “why is this a part of human nature?” is a good question.
    
    source
- centof@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I’d answer this by saying it is human nature.
  
  I would actually disagree with that statement to some degree. I think it is largely learned behavior to follow in the context of modern society. We spend 15+ years of our life having to follow authority in some way via the school system and that conditions us to follow more than lead on a society wide scale.
  
  There is certainly an element of nature to via mirroring. Mirroring is when people subconsciously imitates the gestures and body language of another person to help build trust. However, I believe that our cultures way of nurturing obedience via its institutions is a bigger factor in how we treat leaders.
  
  source
- ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I’d answer this by saying it is human nature.
  
  I follow where you’re coming from, however I’m quoting this little part as I always find arguments to “nature” suspect, especially regarding conscious entities which complicate this observation/thinking. You can probably guess where I’m going with this, that being, “Well, what is human nature?” which as you say isn’t a criticism/dig at you, it’s more of a personal quibble with the “nature” line of thinking.
  
  Nevertheless, I lean towards agreeing with you in the sense that it may be more related to an unreflective/unconscious social predisposition of humans specifically (possibly other social species as well in their own forms).
  
  source
  - blackbrook@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well “it’s human nature” can indeed be a cop out. It shouldn’t be a discussion ender. And it shouldn’t be a justification. Murder is a part of human nature too. However it is a reality to be worked with. And one can ask, in what conditions is this behavior brought out, and in what conditions discouraged?
    
    source
YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s called sheep behavior for a reason. Most people are hard wired to be followers. It’s why your best leader will always apply servent leadership. A servant leader shares power, puts the needs of the followers first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.

source
winterayars@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This thread has a lot of frankly bad takes in it. Lots of people going “the majority of people are just hard wired to love authority” and that’s just wrong. Psychological research into authoritarian personalities (the kind of people who are like that) tells us authoritarian follower personalities not rare but by no means are they the majority.

I think you know where all this stuff comes from because the fact that you’re asking the question at all makes me think you’re on the other side of the authoritarian follower spectrum (anti-authoritarian). What would happen to the person who rejected authority figures? They would be hurt. That does not come about by accident and it’s not some innate feature of human psychology. It is intentional. Authority (control) is maintained with violence. Either soft violence (neglect) or actually capital-V Violence.

source
tasty4skin@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I agree with another commenter that this not something that people consciously think about when they do it. I think the main thing you’re touching on is groupthink. This is the reason that groups of people behave differently than you’d expect individual people to.

Positions of leadership (and therefore power) as an institution are traits passed down to us from Feudalists who organized society in hierarchies. I would say groupthink allows these kinds of social structure to continue long past the point that people realize there a better ways because they assume other members of the group are okay with them.

That’s all not to mention the fact that some people are genuinely skilled leaders or that people in positions of leadership are going to have a bigger influence in what is accepted in the group.

source
BoxerDevil@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because it’s easier than going on your own

source
- Foggyfroggy@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For sure. Humans are super social and our big brains enable so much verbal, nonverbal, and written communication that we became more efficient as a group. All the greatest things out there, bridges and sky scrapers and roads were built by teams, not an individual, because of our strong communication skills.
  
  source
ManosTheHandsOfFate@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You don’t have to “elevate” a person in order for them to be a leader. You just have to recognize that they have a certain organizational skill set that not everyone has. That skill set helps things get done. It’s just a job and they’re just people.

source
pg_sax_i_frage@lemmy.wtf ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
perhaps, somewhat related, a place to point out the example of tge republic of San Marino. They have, and have had, since an horn’t times: a system of co leadership at the highest national level of government.:+. Two people, elected, jointly holding the position, no singular figure, (and even those two, are changed, at most, every six months on a regular basis, and I belive they can’t serve more than one term consecutively, if at all).

Theyve had, San Marino, a long and sucequite sucessfully history. Perhaps the only country then known to survive the the conquest of many surrounding regions on the peninsula. No civil wars, and no transitions of power of changes of government in wchich anybody seems to have been so much as killed or seriously injured. And the system hof co government, and rotation aahs lasted a long time, the longest lasting continuous republic to exist today, I think it’s supposed to be. San Marino.

source
agitatedpotato@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ignorance is bliss, why do the thinking yourself?

source
momentonaut@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Insufficient emancipation I guess.

source
willya@lemmyf.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve always wondered this and wish I had an answer.

source
- DrunkenPirate@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There‘s nothing more annoying than a group of „individuals“ on a night tour. Each move, either in this or that club, to the right or to the left, stay or lesve this place, as to be discussed in deep detail and from every micro perspective. Until a shared view emerges.
  
  It’s simply a better way to be a group of people to have a leader who hs a say. Good leaders care about the group members and might even have more experience than the groups individuals. I‘m quite happy to have a guide in a museum who can tell stories about the images. I‘m happy to have a leader to follow in the mountains. And I‘m happy to have someone leading a group through new fields of anything, so I learn from an experienced and might do my own steps in this s field alone.
  
  source
  - willya@lemmyf.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    In those situations of course a leader is needed. I wasn’t even thinking of those types when reading ops post.
    
    source
NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Monkey brain strong

source
transientpunk@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Thinking for yourself is difficult. Turning off your brain and doing what you’re told is much easier than forging your own path.

source