Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Thaelog
By taking the initiative you control the interaction. I don't see where that isn't dominance.
You might want to look closer, then.
Hint: ever have a hot and bothered sub take the initiative?
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If you have a person or persons who are consistently guiding the actions of an individual or a group, that is the essence of leadership.
Hardly. The essence of leadership is the trust, support and confidence you inspire in individuals or groups. And it is rooted in your ability to make the right call. Which, in turn, tends to require the ability to know when to listen, who to listen to, and at what point it is correct to act, along with a host of other factors. Ideally, this means guiding, or even doing nothing. At times, it means being the unpopular dictator that is either celebrated or drawn and quartered at the end of the day, and to whom neither is as important as one simple fact: if it was your call, it is your responsibility. Knowing you made the right call is its own reward, and knowing you made the wrong one is a greater burden than that imposed by others (emotionally and intellectually, at least).
And, most importantly, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with dominance.
I know officers from the military that are submissive by nature, orientation and preference. I also know dominant people holding subordinate positions in service professions where the number one thing is humility and pleasing the customer. I know dominants without any leadership ability, and submissives with plenty. Sure, it's probably more common to find dominants that have a natural inclination compatible with them becoming leaders, but the qualities required are not exclusive to dominants. In fact, I'm not even sure they're more common in dominants. At least not if we define dominants in term of dominance.
Some of my buddies consistently get to take initiative. Until I decide otherwise. 
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All governments reflect this. Power given to a few to be exercised for the benefit (arguable in many cases but theoretically how it goes) of the whole.
You may want to go back to the start of the institution. It has little to do with leadership, and more to do with monopolies and politics. And we've got several millenia of history on this point. It started with farming, the growth of a group whose only contribution was working less and deciding more, in part by virtue of being able to, as they didn't need to work as much anymore. By rearranging others to vye for power, they established an effective decision making monopoly. After a while, this became a hereditary institution which diversified over time into various patriarchial models of government.
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Our jobs are pyramidal power structures.
Yours, maybe. It's not a viable long term model. And labor organizations around the world have done a decent job of illustrating that the old master/slave model is as illusory now as it was in antiquity, when the suggestion was made that slaves be given a uniform and someone had the brilliant insight that this would be the end of them, as it would let the slaves know how many of them there were. These days, it's really a question of people realizing they're slaves, as they already know how many they are.
Throw a leader into that, a slave that other slaves listen to and follow, and the whole structure crumbles. Or learns who holds the real power: the one that makes the call and is willing to bear the consequences. Corporations and governments are without the capacity for bearing any consequences in the model you reference. It's a common analysis that they qualify as psychopathic, really.
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Our families... I don't see the kids ruling the roost.
Qualifications? Dependence? Power? Etc...
Aside from which, a paraphrase from a Spartan asked about democracy: "Try it in your home, and tell me how that works out for you."
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That's not to say people can't be dominant in one aspect of their lives and submissive in another. I see it all the time, but as a species we are leaders and followers.
Again, seperate those two things.
Health,
al-Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Social power exchange - 
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