People grow up in specific historical moments that colour the way their caregivers approach raising a child—that affect the kinds of experiences they're given. I grew up in the historic moment of participation trophies. I may have also grown up in a historic moment of "leadership."

There was this persistent notion throughout my early childhood that everyone needed to be a leader. I was being drowned in programs that promised to teach me how to lead. Looking back on it this feels pretty silly because not everyone can be a leader. That's not how hierarchical societies work. Maybe a better society wouldn't have leaders at all—one in which people made decisions collectively, but despite what the National Post will tell you, my elementary school teachers weren't trying to raise anarcho-communists. They were explicitly trying to raise "leaders."

I live in British Columbia, and in the winter I like to go skiing. It's probably my most bougie hobby. When I lived on the east coast, skiing was pretty bad but relatively cheap. Here, the skiing is incredible, and it's affordable pretty much only if you're a college or university student. Most of the people who are going skiing in British Columbia are fabulously wealthy. Whistler is like the little Davos of Canada. The one place in the country you can meet granola software engineers and war profiteers on the same chairlift. Between them, there's lots of folks from all over the world who've adopted very strange attitudes about people, I suspect in large part due to their wealth.

One time my friend and I got on the chairlift with who I think was a rich HVAC magnate and his wife from Australia. He didn't talk much about what he did, just how much money he made doing it. He told us that he didn't make his first million until he was fifty, after a messy divorce with his second wife who took everything he owned. He asked us what we did. I was studying at the time, and my friend was looking for work. He asked, "Why do you want to work for someone else?"

Before giving us a chance to answer, he started speaking at length about his HVAC fortune. After he seemed to be running out of things to say, I jumped in.

I've never really found leadership "fun" or something desirable to do. When I was a kid, I did it because people kept telling me I needed to. As I got older I did it because I'd convinced myself I was the one who had vision, and that the only way I could see my vision executed was to do leadership. But I never really had the vision; I had a vision.

These days, in as much as I think we should have leaders at all, I don't think it should be a job you want to do for fun, fame, or fortune. The more material incentive you put in place for people to take on leadership roles, the more I fear they'll attract the wrong kind of person. Even the utopian sociocratic consensus democracy solarpunk utopian mutualist ecological anarcha-feminist utopian people's utopian municipalist working group for the betterment of whatever needs people empowered to act and execute decisions directly or in a managerial capacity. They need "leadership," in that they need a formulated vision to bring into reality. That's labour. I think it's something that should be done out of a sense of duty rather than the extrinsic rewards of having done it. The people who ought to be doing that labour are the true believers, who would do it merely to feel like they're a part of something greater than themself.

But you don't need to be a leader to feel a part of something greater than yourself. You can get the same feeling as a follower, or better yet, as someone working to bring a shared vision to reality.

I told him the reason I didn't want to work for myself was because I didn't enjoy being a leader. I'd tried it a number of times, and it never felt like my place.

His wife got it immediately. She told us every leader needs someone to follow them. Someone has to do the work.

The HVAC guy didn't get it, though. He looked as us blankly for maybe ten or fifteen seconds, like he'd short-circuited. He understood what I'd said, but he didn't seem to understand why I'd say it. I didn't explain.

He tried to steer the conversation back onto the subject of his Australian HVAC empire. The rest of the chairlift ride felt awkward. As we got off, they headed down a different trail and we never saw each other again.

Respond to this article

If you have thoughts you'd like to share, send me an email!
See here for ways to reach out