Opal Leung's Blog

A large part of being a Sauder student is to become a leader. We often define a leader as a guiding individual who is first to initiate an idea or a movement.

This TED Talks video presents an alternate definition of leadership. In the video, a man begins to dance in front of a crowd. Before long, a second person joins in and sets off a chain reaction, with other people following suit. In many cases, we consider the first dancer as the leader because he initiates the movement. However, the speaker shines the spotlight on the second dancer, as he is the one who transforms the lone nut into a leader in the eyes of the audience.

Many of us are in a mad scramble to be the first, but we rarely pause to think if that is the right move to make as a leader. It is not always the chronological order of events that define a leader. Rather, it is the person’s effect on the crowd that transforms an individual into a leader.