ENDA Episode 36→ The time when the Endless Apprentice knew the journey of a leader (Part 1)

During my time at the Animation and VFX school, I had the opportunity to see two different paths to becoming a leader.

The first person who I would call MAC, was someone that started with us since the first semester. He came from a business and management environment and was beginning his own company. He was interested in the animation industry and wanted to learn a lot.

His artistic vein seemed good enough and seemed to have charisma to be a leader. But that is the key detailed: seemed.

During the first animated short film, we had to do in the first semester, his team (he was the director) had many cohesion problems and schedule management issues, not to mention the quality of the final product and the tensions in the group.

Now, do not get me wrong, having problems in a production is not an issue itself, but how you deal with them and that was where he got mistaken.

However, mistakes are to be learned and bad experiences can turned into fuel for a better project next time. Just there won’t be a next time for him and it will be on his own accord.

For the next semester, there was a certain incident when we had to reprogram the class to be recovered next week. It was submitted to vote on two options for the recovery, the first option won by a majority.

However MAC who was on the side of the second option protest because that date did not suit well for him and the other five people who also voted for that option. The coordinator was clear and told him they need to have a majority. MAC tried to convince to the rest in that moment, but no one else wanted to changed his/her vote.

I remember his disappointed face, he was frustrated too and a bit angry. Curiously, a few day later he stopped coming to the school. I want to believe it was because of his responsibilities with his new company.

Nevertheless, those experiences had some weight on him. Especially the last one, that collide with a false sense of leadership that some people tend to have when starting: “If they don’t follow me in everything I do, they don’t respect me as a leader, they are not fit to be my team”.

That “leader” is not looking for teammates, but rather fanatics or Yes-men. A group form by those will not be a team, not even a group, but a more like sect. Where the “leader” will give an order and everyone will follow it blindly not even considering if it is good or bad for them or even for the  same “leader”.

And that’s only if you managed to actually found people willing to follow you in that way, because most of the time this approach will made you unapproachable or unreliable.

People in any industry hardly will trust someone who abandons his team at first disagreement. Which of course will be unprofessional and will put you on many blacklists.

Now I did mention that I encountered two paths, which one is the second one?

Well, that would be for the chapter.