The Best Leaders Never Forget What It’s Like to Be a Follower
It’s a hundred degrees on a College Station afternoon, and I’m standing at rigid attention against a wall in the Corps of Cadets dorm. I’m a freshman—a ‘fish’ here. An upperclassman stands close, testing if I can recite what he told me to memorize. My shirt is soaked. My mind is racing. And the only two things I’m allowed to say are “Yes sir” and “No sir.”
That was my whole first year. Not classes, not football games, not the college experience they show in the brochures. My freshman year was built around one job: learning to be a follower.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but that year taught me more about leadership than any book, any seminar, or any corner office ever has. Because here’s what nobody tells you: you cannot lead people well if you’ve forgotten what it feels like to follow.
The Year I Couldn’t Escape
In the Corps, the fish year isn’t a suggestion. It’s the deal. Upperclassmen lead, freshmen follow, and there’s no negotiating the arrangement. Every day, someone above me in the chain had authority over how I stood, how I spoke, how I spent my time.
And here’s the part that stuck with me for life: some of those upperclassmen were worth following, and some weren’t.
Some of them led with a kind of steadiness that made you want to measure up. They were hard on you, sure, but you could feel that it was for a reason. They’d correct you and then, later, quietly show you how to get it right. You’d have run through a wall for those guys.
And then there were the others. The ones who mistook a rank for a personality. They pushed because they could, not because it made anyone better. Following them felt like busywork — obedience for the sake of someone else’s ego.
Now, I had a choice about how to handle the second group. I could balk. I could roll my eyes, drag my feet, make my displeasure known. But there were only two outcomes down that road: I’d either stay in constant trouble, or I’d resign and walk away from the Corps altogether.
To me, neither one was an option. So I did the harder thing. I followed anyway — even the ones I didn’t respect — and I paid close attention to the difference between the two kinds.
The Classroom You Only Get Once
Here’s the thing about being a follower: it’s the only time you see leadership from the bottom looking up. And that view is priceless.
Think about a restaurant. Anybody who’s waited tables or bussed dishes as a kid grows up to be a better restaurant customer. They know what it’s like when someone snaps their fingers for service. They know the difference between a rush that’s nobody’s fault and a kitchen that’s just disorganized. That experience never leaves them. It shapes how they treat every server for the rest of their life.
The fish year was my version of bussing tables. I was on the receiving end of every leadership style there is — the good, the bad, and the lazy — and I felt each one in my gut. Knowing exactly what it felt like to be corrected in a way that built me up, and what it felt like to be corrected in a way that tore me down. I collected all of it, whether I wanted to or not.
Most leaders eventually lose that view. They climb, they get comfortable, and the memory of the bottom rung fades. They start issuing directions without ever picturing the person on the other end of them. And that’s exactly when leadership goes sideways.
Why the Countdown Changed Everything
There was one more thing that kept me grounded that year, and it might be the most important part of the whole story.
I knew the clock was ticking. In one short year, I wouldn’t be a fish anymore. I’d be the upperclassman. I’d be the one standing in front of a wide-eyed freshman, holding real responsibility for the next fish class coming up behind me.
That changes how you experience being led. When you know you’re about to sit in the other chair, you stop just surviving the treatment and start studying it. Every good leader became a model of what I wanted to be. Every bad one became a warning of what I refused to become.
Let me put it differently. I was taking notes the whole time without realizing it. And when my turn came, I already knew the kind of leader I wanted to be — not because someone lectured me on leadership theory, but because I’d spent a year feeling the results of it, up close, in the heat.
Here’s the reframe worth sitting with: every person you lead is watching you the same way I watched those upperclassmen. They’re deciding, quietly, whether you’re worth following. And a good number of them will one day sit in a chair like yours, leading the way you taught them to.
What This Means for You on Monday Morning
You probably didn’t have a fish year. But you had something. A first boss. A first job where you were the low person on the ladder. A season where someone else held all the authority and you held none.
The question is whether you still remember how it felt.
Because most leadership problems I see aren’t about strategy or skill. They’re about a leader who has lost the ability to imagine the view from below. They forgot what it’s like to be handed a vague assignment and no context. Leadership forgets what it’s like to be corrected in front of the entire team. They forgot what it’s like to pour effort into something and have the boss never notice.
So here’s a simple exercise. The next time you’re about to hand down a decision, a correction, or an assignment, pause and ask yourself one question: If I were on the receiving end of this — the way I’m about to deliver it — would it make me want to follow me?
That’s it. That’s the whole test. It’s not complicated, and that’s the point. Leadership rarely fails because people don’t know the fancy frameworks. It fails because they stopped remembering what it feels like to be the person being led.
The best leaders I’ve ever known — in the military, in banking, in the businesses I’ve built — all had one thing in common. They never lost that memory. They could still feel the wall against their back and the sweat on their shirt. And it made them careful with the power they’d been given, because they knew exactly what that power feels like when it’s pointed at you.
The Chair Always Turns Around
I spent a year learning to follow because I had no other choice. Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. It gave me a compass I’ve carried into every leadership role since.
The fish becomes the upperclassman. The new hire becomes the manager. The person taking orders today is giving them tomorrow. The chair always turns around.
So the real question isn’t whether you can lead. It’s whether you still remember being led — and whether you’re leading in a way that the person on the other end would actually want to follow.
Sit with that one for a minute. Then go lead like someone’s taking notes. Because they are.
What’s the one leadership lesson you learned from the bottom of the ladder — from a boss worth following, or one who wasn’t? I’d love to hear your take.
