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The Internet Is Full of Leaders, But Who Exactly Are They Leading?
The internet is full of leaders.
Leadership coaches.
Thought leaders.
Leadership podcasts.
Leadership masterminds.
Leaders developing leaders.
Emerging leaders learning to lead other leaders.
At some point, the word starts sounding like my daughter poking the same piano key over and over again at my parents' house.
Recently I noticed something while scrolling LinkedIn.
Before I even reached the “Load More” button, there were 45 posts on my feed.
Out of curiosity, I searched the page (Ctrl+F, if you’re wondering) for the word “lead.”
It appeared 45 times.
One post had 66 words total.
The word “lead” appeared seven times.
More than ten percent of the entire post was some variation of “lead.”
And honestly, I think I finally realized why the word has started bothering me.
Not because leadership is bad.
But because we’ve stretched the word so far that it barely means anything anymore.
At one point, leadership described something pretty specific:
guiding people toward a shared goal.
Now it’s become a catch-all identity label for competence, ambition, discipline, responsibility, confidence, and moral worth.
A guy works hard?
Leader.
A woman answers emails efficiently?
Leader.
You wake up at 5 a.m.?
Self-leadership.
You drink water and use a planner?
Elite leadership mindset.
Eventually the whole thing starts sounding ridiculous.
See…Ryan gets it. Leadership is all about posting about leadership.
And maybe the strangest part is that “follower” has become almost taboo language.
Everybody wants to lead.
Nobody wants to follow.
If everyone is a leader who leads other leaders, then who's leading the leaders who lead the leader to leadership?
Like I said…ridiculous.
But healthy adults move between those roles constantly.
Sometimes you lead.
Sometimes you listen.
Sometimes you defer to expertise.
Sometimes you admit someone else knows more than you.
Sometimes you stay quiet and take notes.
Sometimes you’re exhausted, don’t care, and just want to go home.
That’s not weakness.
That’s maturity.
The older I get, the less interested I am in building some identity around being “a leader.”
Honestly, most of adulthood seems to come down to something much simpler:
Shouldering your responsibilities.
If the moment requires initiative, take initiative.
If it requires humility, be humble.
If it requires learning, learn.
If it requires sacrifice, sacrifice.
If your wife’s back hurts and she asks for a glass of ice water, you get up and bring her a glass of ice water.
That’s not leadership.
It’s care.
It’s partnership.
It’s responsibility.
It’s love expressed through ordinary life.
And maybe that’s part of what bothers me about so much modern self-improvement language.
Everything has to become mythology now.
Every ordinary act gets reframed as:
leading,
optimizing,
executing,
dominating,
crushing goals,
or building an elite mindset.
But most meaningful lives are built in much quieter ways.
A father staying up with a sick kid at 2 a.m. isn’t “leading his family.”
He’s just being a dad.
A husband apologizing after an argument isn’t “leading relationally.”
He’s taking responsibility.
A friend answering the phone late at night isn’t demonstrating “servant leadership.”
He’s simply showing up.
The internet rewards the appearance of virtue.
Real life requires the practice of it.
And honestly, I think most men are far less interested in becoming “leaders of leaders who lead other leaders while being self-led leaders by example” than the internet assumes.
I think most men just want to become:
dependable,
present,
capable,
calm,
useful,
loving,
and trustworthy.
No slogan required.
Until next time—
keep the fires burning.
– Clay
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