The depiction of leader – follower mutual roles by Ira Chaleff is a very unique demonstration of the mutuality of this professional relationship with a brilliant creative artistic touch. Truly, it is the case and depending on the style, the success or failure of a team as such is often determined. However, there is one more such observable metaphor; that of a tag team wrestling round.
Though not very often, there are tag teams where both the members are found to me in harmony with each other’s performance; especially if they are mutually in good terms. The more aggressive and powerful senior partner often assumes the leader role and the other partner tags with him whenever he extends his hand.
The more common is a weak following in the said case above. There are often tag team partners who are not very well known to each other or are in antagonistic terms mutually, and one partner leaves all the fight to be done by the leading partner; and responds to his tags but very little. This weak followership often leads the team to lose the game.
The most common pattern in wrestling is a self serving followership with individualist agenda. When two equally powerful individual wrestlers are set as a team for some reason, none of them accept the leadership of the other. They appear as partners in the ring but there is hardly any leading or following pattern in the fight. Such wrestlers rarely give chance to the tag partner unless he is lethally stuck or at risk. They both, without coordination, wrestle in their own right to show off own power and it is due to their individualist wrestling superiority that they often win the match. However, they lose completely to be a tag team at all.
Another aspect of the above type of match is the last pattern; disrespectful to leader – vision. Indeed, it is the disrespecting tendency to leading partner’s vision that they maintain own agenda and do not coordinate mutually. Needless to say that none of them assume the responsibility of the match as a team, and run the risk of failure at any moment. Their success is nothing but a fortunate accident or turn of chance.
Indeed, what leading and following means is the very first style where both have the same agenda and a mutually cooperative performance – pattern towards it. Only then, the best outcomes are achieved.
References
Chaleff, Ira. [Ira Chaleff]. (2011, May 3). Leadership and Followership: What Tango Teaches
Us About These Roles in Life. [ Video file]. Retrieved from
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cswrnc1dggg.
[Ira Chaleff]. (2001, June 27). Is The Follower Role or The Leader Role More Difficult?.[Video
