One way to evaluate leaders is to look at their followers. Take this extreme example: Holland Reynolds, a skinny high school runner who became a source of inspiration for the burly football players of the New York Giants. Two years after her amazing crawl across the finish line following a collapse a few yards away, she was featured this week on ESPN’s Sunday pre-game show as a cornerstone in the Giants’ current motto: finish—the same motivational phrase that helped prepare the team to win last year’s NFL championship.
Without such a high-profile following, Reynolds’s impressiveness as a leader remains. Before her now famous race, she rallied teammates to clinch their state championship. Who knows how many others have been moved by her story.
But it’s not who is following that defines a leader, it’s who could follow.
While many of us are unlikely to run a 5K in 20 minutes, we have lots of opportunities to finish the proverbial race or show our determination in some other way. Even if no one posts our accomplishment to YouTube or uses our story to encourage some of the best athletes in the world, we can still celebrate our leadership—our ability to serve as proof to others that “it” can be done.
And you never know, someone just might be watching after all.
