In 1934, a young woman by the name of Sara Pollard applied to Vassar College in New York. The admissions office required her father to fill out a questionnaire over Pollard’s personality and character. Pollard’s father described her, truthfully, as more of a follower type than a leader. Pollard was accepted into Vassar College, as the school stated they, “have enough leaders already” (Not leader material). In the present day, this situation would likely never occur. Parents would never openly describe their child as a follower, rather than a leader, because of the immense pressure from schools on children to fulfill leadership roles, regardless of their aspirations or abilities. Leadership is an admirable trait, but is not the most important and not necessary for someone to succeed. Leadership is too often defined by obtaining a position, but many individuals do not possess the ability to properly lead, and may not even aspire to a leadership role at all.
Society too often equates leadership primarily with
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Leaders are needed for the corporate world to expand, especially since most companies are interested in expanding globally. However, this viewpoint tends to define leadership as a status, and often plays into the romance of leadership, which places all responsibility for success or failure on the leader of a project or team. This ideology erases followership and its importance in achieving a team’s goal. A team must be cohesive and be able to communicate with each other. For this to be a possibility, the leader must want to lead, want to succeed for more than their own personal gain, and have the ability to unite the team for a common cause. Forcing students early in their education into leadership positions they likely are not suited for only leads them to failure and puts the entire team into