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Peers

Career

Aspire To Be The Leader, Not The Follower

May 4, 2009

When you first enter a job, one of the first things that you need to understand is your role within the company. Are you the leader or are you the follower. While their are obviously more followers than leaders in a company, that doesn’t mean you should accept that role and not try to be more. One of the biggest complaints that I hear people say is that they hate their job because their is no chance for them move up. To this I ask: Have you done everything you can?

If they answered yes, that means that you have put in the extra hours, you have offered to help out in areas that aren’t your own responsibility and you have taken an active role within the company to try and bring value. If not, then it you need to ask yourself: Why? While their is nothing wrong with being a follower, people remember leaders, not followers. In the workplace when a project has positive results, typically the leader of the project will get most of the credit. It is true that those involved in the project get some credit as well, but the bulk of the credit will go to the leader. When a project goes bad, the opposite will happen. Someone has to take responsibility for a failure and that means one of the ‘followers’ are subject to scrutiny.

Why Be The Leader?

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