by instinct young leaders are often tempted to lead silent rebellions. there is something about the nature of those who have both the capacity to see what needs to be change and some personal influence with others that is great enough to get them to come with you on making the change without ever asking them to. prototypically these silent rebellions take place inside of institutions or highly structured work environments. mostly these rebellions are meaningless, but often they raise the dander of those who are in authority.

your rebellion has it origins in your early years. without explanation you saw things differently than others. a rule or boundary was placed in front of you that didn’t make a whole lot of sense and your lack of loyalty to this contrived restraint produced useful results. you got to the end of the monkey bars more quickly by skipping a over a bar. there was a short cut through a posted ‘no trespassing’ area that won the race. the possibility existed for you to dictate your papers to someone who could type much faster than you, leaving more time open for you to enjoy friends and frivolities. gathering talented people around yourself, you learned to take on more work and utilize the gifts of others rather than each of you working inside your own spaces at the job you were ‘assigned’.

so what should you do? how should you treat your need to live outside of some of the rules but still retain the critical support of those who are far more comfortable operating within bounds? I don’t have all of the answers, but here are some insights still in refinement:

• be sure to not alienate your most important allies.
• you have to get familiar with not being able to please everyone or enjoying universal approval for your methods.
• give up your inclination to carry an edge to your personality all of the time.
• be politely frank with rule followers & gate keepers but also be open to learning from influential leaders coming from a different perspective.
• maintain a few confidants who live and see the world inside the boundaries.
• remind yourself that you are only a leader of a worthy rebellion IF you produce POSITIVE change and IF people are coming with you.
• you don’t need to openly rebel against everyone you don’t see eye-2-eye with… you don’t have enough time and it isn’t worth the energy. pick your spots strategically.
• learn to submit, even when you don’t want to. this will be a very important personal trait to develop that will be highly useful at key times in your life. you are NOT in total control of your life and all of your surroundings.
• break the ‘rules’ when you see a great opportunity to produce positive, needed change in your environment and in our world — we won’t get to new places without the likes of these people.