Creating Leaders, Not Followers

This is the second of a three-part tribute to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of saintly memory, whose 19th Yartzeit will take place June 11.

Impress people with your strengths, and you might create a good number of followers. Impress people with their own strengths, and you might create a good number of leaders.

In today’s wild world, followers are largely a waste of time – unless you can transform them into leaders. Every marketing director knows it. Every ad exec knows it. Telling people about the virtues of your product is plodding, never-ending labor. But if you can empower those people to spread the word for you, you’ve gone viral. You’ve achieved Malcolm Gladwell’s “tipping point.”

The Lubavitcher Rebbe knew it too. But the Rebbe wasn’t selling a product; he was determined to change the world. The Rebbe knew that education is the keystone to a world of goodness and kindness - but not until you empower the people to be ambassadors for that goodness.

But if everyone knows it, why aren’t more products selling like hotcakes?  And more to the point of this article, if religious leaders know this, why was the Rebbe such a towering, singular figure in our times? Why aren’t there thousands like him?

The answer is not necessarily that the Rebbe knew what others didn’t or don’t know. This is after all, the era of knowledge. Everyone knows everything. Knowledge is not a problem. So what did the Rebbe have that others did not?

Here is a very humble opinion:

It is all good and fine to say that you want to empower your followers to become leaders in their own right, sending the message viral. But it will not work, if deep in your heart, you believe that your followers are beneath you. You cannot empower people if in your heart of hearts you believe they are unworthy or incapable of being leaders. You can orate all you want, but true leadership is an art, not a skill, and only skills can be taught; art must be inspired.

How can a leader inspire leadership if he believes that his followers have only him to lean on, that without him, they have nothing? He can say he that wants them to lead, but if he doesn’t believe they can, they will not believe him, and they will not lead, only follow. In other words, you can get people to believe in you absolutely, but until you believe in them, they won’t believe in themselves, and you will have a very lonely kingdom indeed.

The Rebbe believed in us in an astonishing, astounding way. The Rebbe was never soft with us. He knew we could handle it. The Rebbe had no tolerance for despair or gloom from us. He knew we’re better than that. The Rebbe never stopped demanding from us. He knew we could always do better.

From the very first Farbrengen of the Rebbe’s leadership, he made it clear that while we might see him as supreme leader, he sees himself as a coordinator, facilitator and educator. He described himself as the one who connects people to who they really are. We emphasized his greatness. He pushed back, always unsettling us with reminders of our own greatness.

How incredibly great is that?