They don’t need to be formal leaders to be leaders. In a cooperative video game it’s pretty normal to have everyone just milling about until one or two people take charge of organizing. You might have one person herd a party together while another informs on strategies and organizes people into roles. They’re often not even the leader of the party as designated by the game; it’s the social dynamic of deferring to someone who seems to know what they’re doing that matters.
They don’t need to be formal leaders to be leaders.
Here’s the thing… leadership is never a formal thing. They even acknowledge this in military writings (though never directly) - even old Sun Tzu drew a distinction between someone who is followed due to trust and respect and someone who merely has a rank.
This presents us with a golden opportunity to redefine what this term means - not just for those familiar with radical politics, but for those who aren’t, too. If our much stronger and sensible understanding of leadership contrasts starkly with the wishy-washy esotericism the term is ladden with in the hierarchical world - well, let’s just say that you can’t buy that kind of propaganda.
Even if someone merely has a rank, you still have to listen to them if they’ve been assigned authority over you within a system that coerces your compliance under a threat of some kind. What phrase would be better to describe this kind of authority?
if they’ve been assigned authority over you within a system that coerces your compliance under a threat of some kind.
Yes. The manager. The officer. The bureaucrat. The prefect. All of them are endowed with institutionalised power to coerce you into acting against your own interests, the interests of your community and the interests of your society.
This is what any given hierarchy will call “leadership.”
What phrase would be better to describe this kind of authority?
Lol! “Bosship,” perhaps?
We don’t actually have a term to describe that in the English language as far as I know… and I don’t think that’s any kind of coincidence, either. After all… institutionalised power cannot be threatened by things we don’t even have a word for, can it?
They don’t need to be formal leaders to be leaders. In a cooperative video game it’s pretty normal to have everyone just milling about until one or two people take charge of organizing. You might have one person herd a party together while another informs on strategies and organizes people into roles. They’re often not even the leader of the party as designated by the game; it’s the social dynamic of deferring to someone who seems to know what they’re doing that matters.
Here’s the thing… leadership is never a formal thing. They even acknowledge this in military writings (though never directly) - even old Sun Tzu drew a distinction between someone who is followed due to trust and respect and someone who merely has a rank.
This presents us with a golden opportunity to redefine what this term means - not just for those familiar with radical politics, but for those who aren’t, too. If our much stronger and sensible understanding of leadership contrasts starkly with the wishy-washy esotericism the term is ladden with in the hierarchical world - well, let’s just say that you can’t buy that kind of propaganda.
Even if someone merely has a rank, you still have to listen to them if they’ve been assigned authority over you within a system that coerces your compliance under a threat of some kind. What phrase would be better to describe this kind of authority?
Yes. The manager. The officer. The bureaucrat. The prefect. All of them are endowed with institutionalised power to coerce you into acting against your own interests, the interests of your community and the interests of your society.
This is what any given hierarchy will call “leadership.”
Lol! “Bosship,” perhaps?
We don’t actually have a term to describe that in the English language as far as I know… and I don’t think that’s any kind of coincidence, either. After all… institutionalised power cannot be threatened by things we don’t even have a word for, can it?