Leaders have followers. Managers have employees. Movements need a leader(s), leaders keep the momentum going. A leaderless movement often results in conflicts going un-resolved. It is very easy for a leaderless movement to be hijacked by irrelevant agendas of members.

Here’s what’s changed: Some people admire the new and stylish far more than they respect the proven state of affairs. More often than not, these fad and fashion-focused early adopters are the people who buy and the people who talk. As a result, new ways of doing things, new jobs, new opportunities, and new faces become ever more important.

Marketing, the verb, changed the market.

The market is now a lot less impressed with average stuff for average people, and the market is a lot less impressed with loud and flashy and expensive advertising. Today, the market wants change.

Leaders don’t care very much for organizational structure or the official blessing of whatever factory they work for. They use passion and ideas to lead people, as opposed to using threats and bureaucracy to manage them.

There is a difference between telling people what to do, and inciting a movement.

The movement happens when people talk to one another, when ideas spread within the community, and most of all, when peer support leads people to do what they always knew was the right thing.

Great leaders create movements by empowering the members to communicate. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them.

It’s easy to hestiate when confronted with the feeling that maybe you are getting too much attention.

Great leaders are able to reflect the light onto their teams, their movements. Great leaders don’t want the attention, but they use it to unite the movement and to reinforce its sense of purpose.