What a Lone Festival Dancer Can Teach Us About Leadership

 

You might be wondering how this video of an enthusiastic festival goer could possibly provide an important lesson on leadership, and that is understandable. After all, the image of a lone man flailing about on a hillside hardly resembles the typical portraits of great leaders we have come to expect, such as MLK, Gandi, Lincoln, or Jobs. However, this video actually perfectly demonstrates the process of how leaders come to be. Now before you scoff in dissent, let me explain my reasoning.

The start of the video exemplifies that sometimes being a leader means taking action independently of everyone else. However, in the first 15 seconds of the video, the lone dancer is not actually a leader. Why? A leader needs followers. Otherwise, they are just an individual. It isn’t until about 20 seconds into the video that our lone dancer inspires one follower to hesitantly join the dancing madness. All great leaders start out as individuals without followers, and it is through their passionate course of action – or wacky shirtless dancing – that others begin to follow.

After the first follower joins in, it isn’t until the 50 second mark that another follower comes along. Just like all movements led by great leaders, the follower base takes times to develop. A leader’s follower base usually builds gradually and eventually goes through a snowball effect: one follower leads to two, two leads to four, four leads to eight, and so on. With each additional follower to the group, the leader’s validity to outsiders of the movement strengthens, which consequently attracts more followers. Once the follower base reaches a certain threshold the number of followers begins to exponentially grow. Basically, a single man or woman can become a small group, which can become a powerful movement made up of millions of people.

For our unhinged dancer, the follower base goes from a small group to a massive crowd around the 1:30 mark, and at that point the leader is no longer visible as a mob of dancing people surround him. By the end of the video, the leader has gone from a wacky individual to the leader who inspired a hillside of relaxing spectators to enthusiastically participate. It is the followers who give the leader power and credibility, and ultimately, it is the followers who transform individuals into leaders. That is how leaders are created.