Great article Mike. You hit the nail right on the head.

Unfortunately, our authoritarian society forces over 90% of us to become conformists, some more and some much less. It also teaches us only the authoritarian mode of managing people, that being to control people through commands. Conformists follow the leadership of management in the workplace, waste a huge amount of brainpower doing so, and follow bad leadership just as easily as good leadership. No one likes to take orders and knowing that we have been disrespected demotivates and disengages us.

The few of us who are not conformists are any company's very best people because they don't waste time trying looking around trying to figure out what they should do. They use their own value standards to decide what to do and how to do it. The effect is that the workplace gets 100% of their brainpower and thus 100% of whatever natural creativity, innovation, and productivity they have since all of that comes from their brain. And since one of their values is to do better everyday, they continually try to do better. These are the leaders you speak of Mike. The great thing is that an executive or manager can cause conformists to stop conforming, stop wasting brainpower on it, and never again follow bad leadership, only good. So the vast majority of conformists can be converted to being what you call leaders.