An idea that has always challenged me is how followers have a profound impact on their leaders. The best depiction of this phenomenon for me is "The Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk. The sailors on the mine sweeping vessel rightly commit mutiny against their unstable and unsafe captain, Captin Queeg. In the court martial trial regarding their mutiny, they win their case. Clearly Queeg was rightly overthrown.
But the big surprise is that the sailors were the real guilty party. They had turned Queeg into the officer they rightly mutinied against. Their questioning and actions against a military hero (from previous days) pushed him over the edge.
It is so easy for followers to think and behave like victims when in reality they may be the ones determining the quality of the leadership they suffer under.
The article, "The Student as a Cooperating Consumer" (Kenneth Brown, Foundation Stones, September 1960) makes this very claim about students. That is, students have a huge impact over the quality of the teaching they receive.
So when we are tempted to complain about the quality of the leadership or teaching under which we must sit, we should consider the ways in which we are actually getting what we deserve.
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