Image courtesy of Travis S. via flickr

I have never wanted to be a leader. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I find myself in that position quite often. I distinctly recall the first time anyone ever accused me of actually holding sway over a group of people. I was very young at the time, probably around 12, and in they very stereotypical fashion of that particular age bracket my group of friends had decided that it was time to ostracize one of our own. I honestly could not tell you what it was that he did at the time. Frankly, I am not sure he actually did anything. I think it was just one of those situations where we were experimenting with social structure and power and he was the guinea pig of the moment.

At some point our friend must have told his parents about what was going on and how badly it was hurting him, because a few days into this whole experience I found myself sitting at my kitchen table with his Mother.

She had come over to have a conversation with me about what we were doing to her son, and to ask me to put a stop to it. I professed my innocence, or at least lack of sole responsibility, and claimed that there was nothing I could do. I’ll never forget how she looked at me over her glasses like I was a complete idiot, and told me in no uncertain terms that these boys listened to me. That they followed me. That they did what I told them to do, and that if I wanted to I could put a stop to her son’s pain just by telling the rest of our crew to cut the shit.

So I did.

And they listened.

Now I’m not sure if she actually believed what she said that day. Did she detect some sort of inherent, untapped leadership potential in me that she latched on to in order to achieve her goals, or did she just know that I was the only kid in the neighborhood with a computer and thus held the keys to the then unheard-of kingdom of video gaming at home? In any case, for the next few years after that I assumed the unofficial role of the leader of our nerdy little gang. I would be lying through my teeth if I said I didn’t let it go to my head. The adults in my life soon began referring to me as Tom Sawyer, because I used my newly acquired status to get my friends to help me do all my chores around the house in exchange for staying in my good graces. I’m not proud of that fact, but there’s a lot of things I did in my formative years that I’m not exactly proud of. I’m fairly confident I’m not alone in that, either. Teenagers are, on the whole, horrible people and should generally be kept in cages far away from the rest of the human race until they evolve to the point where they can interact with the general populace without causing constant headaches.

Now one might think that having experienced that kind of power and influence in my formative years that I would have pursued the whole leadership thing, but I never really had a desire to do so. Leadership is a hell of a lot of work and responsibility, and it takes a certain type of personality to want to take all of that on. I’m just not that type of guy. The problem is that I am the type of guy who sees when there isn’t a clear leader in a situation, or that the current leadership is steering the ship in the wrong direction. When that happens?  I step up.  If there is anything I hate more than taking on responsibility I don’t want to, it is seeing that problems have solutions and being frustrated that someone in a position of power isn’t implementing them.

This gets me in trouble often. Well, trouble is relative I suppose. It gets me put in charge. It happens in my personal and professional life. I spent several years as a Guild Leader in World of Warcraft, despite just wanting to play the game in peace, because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I saw ways in which our guild could achieve their goals. That experience led me to become one of the Assistant Directors for the Video Game track at Dragon Con (when, really, all I wanted to do was spend a few days surrounded by my fellow geeks, getting drunk, and generally having no responsibilities whatsoever). When I was working for Staples back in the 90’s I was promoted to manager shortly after going full-time when all I really wanted to do was sell computers. They, apparently, saw something in me that I wasn’t even trying to show and pushed the title on me. Even my current position, as manager of a small team of web developers, was one I fell into rather than one I pursued. I just wanted to write code.

Apparently however, despite my best efforts to direct my life in a different direction, I keep ending up in leadership positions. If I continue on my current career and educational path, I may even end up in a C-level position at some point before I retire. As the Baby Boomers start to leave the workforce more and more of us in Generation X are going to find ourselves in those kind of roles, and it’s a bit hard to get my head around. I mean, we were supposed to be the slacker generation. Who thought that one day we’d actually be in charge?

And yet, here we are. Here I am. Struggling to find an identity as a corporate leader without becoming just another carbon copy of those who came before me. Hiding my tattoos with long-sleeved shirts and closing my office door so I can blare Social Distortion between meetings. Watching others like me do the same, and feeling all along that I’m not THAT old. That I can’t really be in this position. That it’s all just some big joke and I’m not REALLY in my 40’s.

I guess we all have to grow up sometime.