Interactive graph
Follow Their Lead
Table of Contents
Follow their lead = I join their world before I redirect it - their activity, topic, pace, or starting point. I pay attention first. I can suggest a better way later; the first move is to see what matters to them, not to steer.
Examples
- Sports: My teammate wanted to run a inbound play I'd never seen - I ran it once before I told him how I'd do it. Connection first, critique second.
- Non-technical work: A coworker walked me through how she tracks patient callbacks - I watched the whole spreadsheet before I offered to reorder her columns.
- Home with children: My kid invented new rules for a card game - I played their version instead of stopping mid-hand to teach “real” rules.
- Real world: Coffee with a friend who needed to talk about her mother-in-law - I stayed on her thread instead of pivoting to my own week.
Note Relationships
| Relationship | Wikilink | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| contradicts | Safety Comes First | when following them would allow serious harm |
| extends | Process Over Outcomes | Small moments of attention beat one perfect conversation |
| extends | The Golden Rule | I'd want someone to enter my world before they fixed mine |
| implements | Continuous Improvement | Trust builds through repeated small acts of attention, not one grand gesture |
| implements | Emotional Regulation | I hold the urge to interrupt, correct, or take the wheel |
| implements | Emotional Regulation | I hold the urge to interrupt, correct, or take the wheel |
