“Are you a leader or a follower?” Even though they have the ability to frustrate me greatly, one of my habitual boredom-curing pastimes is taking online personality tests, which often contain this fairly simple-looking question. Yet, time after time, I’m confused as to what to answer.
When I think of the word “leader,” a loud, somewhat aggressive, and at least slightly arrogant person immediately comes to mind. I then think to myself, “Well, that’s not me.” On the other hand, when I think of a “follower,” I immediately think of some extremely meek, passive person who never stands up for his or her own needs, and that’s not me either (or at least hasn’t been since I was around twelve years of age). Therefore, the correct answer as to what I am is unclear. Are my spontaneously generated concepts of “leader” and “follower” too restrictive (I’d wager that they’re a bit exaggerated and stereotypical, but are at least, to some extent, based on reality), or am I some freak of nature who doesn’t fit into either category? I’m sure if I pondered the definitions of “leader” and “follower” for a couple of hours, I’d likely come up with different, more accurate ideas as to exactly what the terms represent. However, when a test has 50 or more questions, I usually don’t have that kind of time, so I rely on what immediately comes to mind when I see those particular words.
Admittedly, whether I’m a leader or a follower isn’t something I pay much attention to during my daily life. In life, I usually do what I feel is ethical and pleasurable (I try to maintain a balance between the two, even if the scales occasionally tip one way or the other); if doing what is ethical and pleasurable means I follow the crowd, so be it. If it means I must guide others for awhile, so be it. If it means I must break away from the “pack” or “herd” and go my own way in solitude, that’s fine too. You could say that, nine times out of ten, I can accurately discern when it’s best to follow, when it’s best to lead, and when it’s best to simply take off. Unfortunately, that somewhat long statement cannot be given as an answer to a multiple-choice personality test.
Going back to the leader/follower question which faces me on many a webpage—I can either tick off one of the options randomly, which would make my eventual score a bit inaccurate, or I can click the “x” on the right side of my screen and exit the test, essentially deeming myself characterless (at least according to that particular inventory!). If I go with the first option and continue on with the test, I often encounter the same dilemma when faced with another question containing another pair of words; to give a few examples: “Are you shy or talkative?”, “Are you practical or imaginative?” and, “Are you stubborn or agreeable?” The list of these pairs goes on and on, and it’s usually hard to choose just one from each, since I don’t always behave the same way in every situation. Sure, I might be shy 60 percent of the time and talkative 40 percent of the time, but those percentages, especially if close, are quite hard to determine.
This may seem like a trivial issue to be concerned about, and you may be thinking, “So what? It’s just a little test.” However, I doubt I’m the only one who has had these thoughts when faced with only two opposing alternatives to choose from on a screen, and it’s situations like this that really drive home the idea that sometimes, the world needs to make room for just a bit more ambiguity.
Interested in personality testing? Read WHAT’S MY TYPE?: The Enneagram system of nine personality types>>
image: Rach (Creative Commons BY-NC—no changes)
