In a majority of situations, we see a marked resistance to leadership in both the leader as well as the group, which effectively disables the leadership from being fully functional. The rare leaders ad teams that are able to work through this can be noticeably freer, creative and empowered.

This resistance is manifested in many ways:

1. Undermining the leader’s authority: This can take place in a variety of ways ranging from subtle avoidance to cracking jokes at the leader’s expense. The point is to make a display of having a direction other than the one initiated by the leader.
2. Disregard, lack of acknowledgment or competition: This is seen mostly in situations where the leadership is not formally created as a role. a natural leader emerges, and the group is happy to follow unconsciously, unless it is brought to their attention in some way. Then, they will ‘punish’ the leader for being higher.
3. Considering voluntary leadership inappropriate: Many times, particularly in Indian Society, people are discouraged from stepping out of the crowd, making waves, etc. When they do, they face resistance and disapproval till their decisions are ‘proved right’ with time.
4. Disowning of leadership: Another manifestation of the social resistance to leadership is when leaders refuse to acknowledge their actions as leadership, and prefer to see them as doing what was needed, or being excessively humble. This disables them from acting out their potential, as they stop acting freely to create change once the immediate need is less visible.

Overcoming these handicaps takes tremendous effort of will, the willingness to see someone coming into their own power and encouraging them and the willingness to take that risk and step into the limelight knowing that you have the capacity to take on the challenge.

This takes not just a firm decision to not allow ourselves to be stopped, but a commitment to introspection – to seeing the significance and safety those blocks bring to us in order to be able to face them functionally and create a change in ourselves that empowers us to be change agents.

The next post will look at what are the opportunities these challenges bring to us, and how we can move ourselves away from the inhibiting influence into an empowered space.

What are your observations of the challenges to the development of leadership? How do you think they can be addressed to empower leaders as well as groups?