Last night, I attended our fourth homeowners association meeting for our neighborhood. Unfortunately, there’s a new developer that has recently purchased the neighborhood and apparently is being a thorn in the flesh to deal with.
There were about 35-40 people at the meeting from about 25 different households. One of the primary objectives of the meeting was electing a board for the HOA.
We stumbled through accomplishing that task, but then something interesting happened.
In the previous meetings and even after the vote, there was still no leader. Sure, we “elected” a President but that person didn’t say more than two words the rest of the meeting. Weird.
It was like watching the first episode in a season of Survivor. Clearly, there needs to be a leader and there are people emerging to be leaders, but no one wants to step up and actually do it.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not knocking any of the people involved or pointing fingers in any way, because I certainly didn’t step up (nor had any interest) to become one of the HOA leaders.
It was the same thing I see when I work with students. If you put students in a group with their peers, it’s interesting to see who emerges as the leader.
My point is this: We need good leaders. People want to have someone they can follow. In that room last night, everyone wanted someone to take charge, get to the point, cut off all the non-sense debates and side conversations, lead decision-making, and get things going in the right direction.
Here’s my challenge for you…are you in a situation or setting or involved with a group of people and you know you need to step up to be the leader? What’s holding you back? Go with your gut if you feel you should step up to take charge. People don’t want to be bossed around, but they do want to be led.
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