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<blockquote data-quote="Larry Fitz" data-source="post: 897378" data-attributes="member: 3949">It's fascinating really. Not only do people follow leaders, but when told to do something in an authoritative tone they do it, or start to, often without question. I suspect that's because if a certain number of our ancestors didn't do that, then they died. Evolution has weeded out too much independent thinking it seems.I'm particularly fascinated by things like Pickett's Charge. I've been to Gettysburg, I stood at one end of the field and saw what those men did. I have never seen anything that indicates what Pickett said to them that day. These were veterans, by the time they got to that battle there were no green behind the ears soldiers in that Virginian Company. Many of them had to realize they had been asked to do the not only impossible, but obviously suicidal. They charged anyway. It's a strange component of human beings, they can believe against all reason that they can be successful in an endeavor. I suppose that's why we have heroes, they dared when reason said not to and they succeeded against the odds. We lionize our heroes, turn them into leaders (Washington, Lenin, Grant, Ghandi, Mandella, Eisenhower), believing that in some way their success in one type of endeavor qulifies them for that role. I believe that there are among us people with the will to lead, and people with the desire to lead. Those two do not always coincide, there are also those who are good at leading. That third is the rarest of all. People will follow someone with any of these traits if there are no other viable candidates. If there are multiple candidates they will follow those whose beliefs appear to be most in line with their own, and if there are more than one of those they will follow those who are the most convincing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Larry Fitz, post: 897378, member: 3949"] It's fascinating really. Not only do people follow leaders, but when told to do something in an authoritative tone they do it, or start to, often without question. I suspect that's because if a certain number of our ancestors didn't do that, then they died. Evolution has weeded out too much independent thinking it seems. I'm particularly fascinated by things like Pickett's Charge. I've been to Gettysburg, I stood at one end of the field and saw what those men did. I have never seen anything that indicates what Pickett said to them that day. These were veterans, by the time they got to that battle there were no green behind the ears soldiers in that Virginian Company. Many of them had to realize they had been asked to do the not only impossible, but obviously suicidal. They charged anyway. It's a strange component of human beings, they can believe against all reason that they can be successful in an endeavor. I suppose that's why we have heroes, they dared when reason said not to and they succeeded against the odds. We lionize our heroes, turn them into leaders (Washington, Lenin, Grant, Ghandi, Mandella, Eisenhower), believing that in some way their success in one type of endeavor qulifies them for that role. I believe that there are among us people with the will to lead, and people with the desire to lead. Those two do not always coincide, there are also those who are good at leading. That third is the rarest of all. People will follow someone with any of these traits if there are no other viable candidates. If there are multiple candidates they will follow those whose beliefs appear to be most in line with their own, and if there are more than one of those they will follow those who are the most convincing. [/QUOTE]

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