I have nothing against leaders. I just don't have the inclination to be one, although I do take initiatives to do what I am moved to do. In ServiceSpace I have encountered the idea of being a ladder, instead of a leader. Here is sharing some instances of how being a ladder manifests in my professional life.

One of my professional roles is as an editor for an academic double-blind peer-reviewed journal, where I get to read the peer reviews and convey a decision back to the author. I mentor the reviewers to be respectful and always find positives in the manuscript, since authors put a lot of effort into their writing. Harsh peer reviews can be devastating, and there is a prevailing culture of being critical without enough emphasis on being developmental.

I had one author who submitted several manuscripts over a period of time but was repeatedly rejected. My best guess (assessment) was that she had great ideas but was not trained in the academic style of writing that is highly stylized. I simply picked up the phone to call and offer her some guidelines on where to find resources to self-train, and encouraged her to keep writing, even if I was about to send her another rejection for her latest manuscript. She was indeed a young author with no mentor or training and a compelling need to write. She was surprised and grateful for my call and has since published successfully. I am grateful for her ideas and persistence, and glad to enable these to be a part of a broader public discourse. 
 
Another professional role I have is as a teacher at a small college. The college awards Professor of the Year award through nomination by colleagues. For three years I have submitted a nomination for a colleague who is planning to retire in the coming years after more than thirty five years of service to the college. He is an amazing teacher, colleague and person. This year, finally, he was selected for the award by the committee that reviews the nominations. As he prepares for the upcoming celebration, he was thinking hard about what he would say, and rather emotional about it. He shared that this was the biggest thing for him, as he had come to the college after finishing his PhD at nearby Berkeley, thinking he would just stay for a year to help, and had liked it enough to spend his entire professional life building it up. He is planning his speech to be about his two grown mentally disabled offspring and what that has taught him about life, since his colleagues, in his words, "don't want to hear from me about being a teacher". It made me very happy to see how much this meant to him. 

I just finished writing a completely different nomination for an International award for a New York city based young professor, based on what I have observed of his work. We have only met twice, at two conferences six years apart. At the first one, he impressed me, but seemed arrogant as he came across as dismissive of my engagement with the ideas. I forgot him but the related ideas have stayed alive in my interests over the years. Last year, I ran into him at a conference again and as I introduced myself, he reminded me of our interaction from six years ago. His tone again suggested his arrogance (or my perception of it) from back then. Only now, I perceived it with empathy and saw that I must have annoyed him just enough for him to remember me grudgingly for all these years. I can be annoying, totally unintentionally, specially when I am learning.

As we talked, we discovered more of our overlapping interests. His thesis supervisor stopped by and greeted me warmly as we share a long warm professional collaboration. I noticed that this warmth from my old collaborator somehow redeemed me in the eyes of his former student, as I could not be a total jerk if I had respect from his teacher. Our conversation this time was so engaging to us that it went past the cleaning crew throwing us out into the corridor, where we stood for another half hour.

Since then, I have more closely followed the work of this young scholar. He relishes the role of being a leader and is a passionate advocate of these fresh ideas that are not main-stream yet. Recently, when an opportunity came to my notice for an award that may be a bit of stretch, but could arguably be related to what he does, I decided to nominate him for the award. Even if he does not win, it was a way for me to write up why I cared about the ideas he advocates, which is good for me.  A few influential academics who are on the award selection committee will also get to know about these ideas as they have to read all the nominations. Regardless of whether he wins or not, I realized through the nomination process, that my role as a ladder is as satisfying to me as his is in being a leader.