Leaders, Not Followers
Because many of us want to better
understand leadership and equip young
people with this vital skill, we are often the
victims of hucksters that want to make money
from this good desire.
Every bookstore has piles of “leadership”
books. There are online classes and articles.
Becoming a leadership guru is a nebulous
career that seems to make a lot of people rich,
but from where I sit, it also seems to produce
more followers than leaders.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, here
it is in plain English: I hate most so-called
“leadership books.”
Generation Joshua students often ask me
why, and I tell them that most of the time
these books fall into one of two categories.
The first kind of leadership book often
devolves into lists of Machiavellian tactics.
These ideas don’t teach you how to lead,
they teach you how to get what you want, no
matter the cost to your soul.
The second kind of leadership book is
about being nice and listening to others.
These books talk about collaborative decisionmaking and flat organizational structures.
They are full of kindness and virtues to
emulate. They are attractive because they are
about how to be a good person. But being a
leader is much more than that. Leaders are
people that others follow.
You can be a Machiavellian manipulator or
a nice and decent person with zero followers
or with five million. What makes someone
a leader is the ability to chart a course and
have other people follow you. Some leaders
are inspiring, some are caring, others are
extremely competent and earn followers with
a long history of results. Some are young and
fresh and inspire others to see things in a new
way. Leaders—even good leaders—come in
many forms.
The
VIP motorcade
arrives at the
iGovern gala
in 2024. © GenJ / Abigail Hoke
One of my personal struggles as a young
leader working on political campaigns was
that I kept trying to lead like my friend Joel,
or like George Washington, or Mother Teresa,
or Winston Churchill, or like my mom. But
try as I might, I was always, at best, the cheap
knock-off version of them. With experience, I
discovered that I needed to learn from and be
inspired by other people’s leadership styles,
but also figure out what works for me as a
leader. Rather than become a cheap clone, I
needed to lead as Jeremiah Lorrig.
Practice is Everything
I also learned that leadership is like a
muscle: It grows when you use it. We apply
that to everything we do when working with
teens at iGovern. We know that everyone
will have to lead in various ways in their
life. So we give them practice growing that
leadership muscle.
To do that, we let students take the reins of
leadership in a massive government simulation. Each student is put in a leadership
position that is taken from the US government
system, such as senator, CIA director, cabinet
secretary, campaign manager, military commander, news editor or political party chair.
No matter what role they are in, the
students will grow their leadership muscles.
Even the “lowest” leaders in our simulation
will make difficult choices on limited
information, deciding what policies to
support and joining coalitions to advocate for
their ideas.
We also recognize that some students
already have developed leadership skills,
and if we treat everyone the same, these
more advanced leaders will not grow their
leadership muscles. They need to be pushed
further. So we also have positions where
experienced leaders can find further growth
opportunities leading other students. They
might be the chair of a committee of their
peers, the party whip whose job it is to
rally votes, or they may even serve as the
president.
The Leadership Muscle at Work
This summer, Caleb was serving as president
at our iGovern camp outside of Washington,
DC. He’s a football guy (congrats on his
college scholarship) and an experienced real-life political campaign volunteer. He led
a simulated political party of 50 students to
victory in our mock election the year prior.
That meant he came back as president this
year. Caleb is clearly already a leader.
Caleb with
his VP, Althia
Vandever,
cabinet, and
ambassadors
at a formal
dinner during
iGovern 2025. © GenJ / Timothy Schatzinger
But back to the story: Caleb was presenting
his administration’s policies in a large camp
gathering. As he laid out his aggressive plan
to dominate his political allies, with little
consideration of checks and balances, I
could see students getting uncomfortable
with both the objectives of his plan and the
means he was planning to use to get there.
He had already lost the support of half of his
intelligence agencies, several of the first-year
students were primed to revolt, and the State
Department students were at a loss.
Caleb’s years of successful leadership in the
Generation Joshua programs got him here,
but now he was stuck. If he continued on this
trajectory, the students would never forget
him as the president who lost the support of
his own government. Caleb had gone too far.
But that’s what simulations are for. They can
show us our strengths and weaknesses—while
the stakes are low.
In this case, Caleb was benching something
that got too heavy and needed a spotter. We
paused the simulation, pulled everyone
into a quick conversation where they could
understand what was happening, and then I
handed the mic back to Caleb.
Caleb, always up for a challenge, stepped
up. With courage, he faced everyone and
asked them to forgive him for letting his
administration go off the rails. He apologized
for taking his eye off the ball. And he reversed
several orders that he had already issued.
In that moment, I think I saw Caleb take
more responsibility and show more leadership
and virtue than I’ve seen in my 18 years of
working in Washington, DC (sometimes closely
with elected leaders).
In his failure, he learned. As he worked
out his leadership muscles, he saw his own
weakness, and instead of ignoring the problem
or pretending it did not exist, Caleb faced his
weakness and decided to overcome it. I think I
saw his leadership muscle grow three sizes
that day.
Caleb
in an Oval Office
meeting at
iGovern 2025. © GenJ / Timothy Schatzinger
Each of us has capacity for leadership. Some
of us may be more naturally inclined to it, but
we can all grow our leadership skills. We do
that through trial and error. All of us make
mistakes. The key is how we respond to them.
My time at Generation Joshua has given me
tremendous opportunities to see students grow
from their mistakes. They learn that a mistake
is not the end of the world, even if there are
serious consequences. Rather, it is how they
respond that matters.
If not handled correctly, mistakes can breed
more mistakes. Sometimes, you pretend it
never happened, but that only means that you
failed to learn from it. Other times, you wallow
in guilt, leaving you stuck in the past.
A mistake, however, can end very positively if
you learn the deep lessons you need from it. A
part of me wonders if the most important thing
Caleb will take away from this year’s camp is to
take responsibility for his mistakes, and then to
make changes so the future can be better.
The natural resource of leadership is one
of the most important things the US has right
now, but we need leaders who will face their
dark moments and learn from them. I would
encourage each of you to learn from your
mistakes, exercise your leadership muscle,
and let yourself grow into the best leader you
can be.
