There's a chance it's part of the affirmative action, equal opportunity, everyone's a winner attitude that has done so much for us until now, but I think it's a big part of what makes people really annoying these days.

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Perhaps leadership skills are so lacking that it is always the focus, that we are always trying to find new leaders, train leaders, push people into becoming leaders, and no one really mentions that you can't have a dozen leaders in one group of 13. Most of the time, 12 people need to be really good at taking orders, figuring out the limits of how much the general commands can be tweaked once it's off the drawing board, what success and failure mean, what is expected of you, the consequences and rewards, how to work together and when(if) to take charge of the situation. In the military there is a chain of command, and whenever one person gets killed, within seconds the person who will take their place is already established. Until then they are expected to do what they are told. For disclosure, I was never in the military, and most of us will not be in situations of life and death, but it still applies when someone gets sick, out of town, phone service is down, people retire, quit, etc..

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Maybe it would crush too many spirits if a big part of your middle school/ high school education was "You're probably not capable of leadership, at least not most of the time, and here is how to be useful still and not annoy everyone around you." Or would it be too much to teach people how to decide when they should lead and when they should follow? A lot of times it seems to come down to who ever has the biggest ego, rather than who is the most capable.

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How does this relate to you in your life? Well I guess the most obvious and somewhat painful way could be that you are the person who is constantly battling for leadership, attacking a good and capable leader, undermining them, sowing discord in the ranks, and causing trouble in the lives of your group. This may be subconscious and you may not even realize it's happening. It might just be passive aggressive remarks here and there, but others pick up on it, and those who are really good at reading people will never fully trust you. Why didn't I get a promotion? Why do I not get invited to the things everyone else in my group of friends go to? Why do I get into so many arguments all the time?

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Or it's someone around you who has this problem, and you couldn't really put into words what their problem was. We're not really wired to think about this stuff anymore, or at least openly talk about it. In any movie or television, if someone wrongly tries to take charge of the situation and is told by their boss or the captain of the team or their commander to get back into line, it's usually seen as a huge insult and sure sign that the underdog will, by the end of the show, rise up and take the place of the bad guy(and it's always a guy) who dared have any regard for hierarchy.

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I am consciously trying to be better at understanding and respecting the various power structures and hierarchies I interact with on a daily basis. There is a time and place for everyone to be the student or the master, the boss or the employee. Knowing which is right for you, and by extension, recognizing when a group is in need of leadership, is a valuable life skill that helps prevent the conflict that just wastes time and energy.