Mom, I'm gonna start a tribe.

Currently I’m reading Tribes by Seth Godin. His book centres on being a leader, an innovator, a pioneer. It really got me thinking to what exactly being a pioneer/ leader means and the public reward or punishment that comes along with it.

I looked up the definition of pioneer in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to compare it to leadership and it read:

2. trans. To go before; to lead, guide, pilot; to prepare the way for (a person or thing). Now rare (colloq. in later use).

I once saw this great interview with Madonna where she was talking about being a trailblazer, a pioneer, a revolutionary. She said in her interview that if someone wants to achieve this status there are going to be times where no one likes you and doesn’t believe in you. And she was right.

Look at pioneers/ leaders throughout our lifetime, no one believed in them at one point. For example, as Godin mentions in Tribes, Al Gore’s environmental movement was recognized almost 30 years ago but no one acted on it. Godin’s answer to this is "that there's a difference between telling people and inciting a movement." This is were we come in.

He talks about how leaders have to believe, but most of all they have to get others to believe. This is what PR is all about - creating tribes. We want followers, we want to influence others, and we want to pave the way for change. Whether it’s change within an organization or something else; we drive the paving truck.

It’s easier today in terms of connecting to people, but much more difficult getting them to believe. This is because we are bombarded with phony marketing every day, why do you think reality TV shows are a hit? Because everyone got sick of watching scripted TV and wanted to see real life.

Godin also mentions how our new market is style conscious and impatient. I can testify to that. So, in order to reach our public/market we need to be two steps ahead, enter the unknown and make it the number one dinner conversation.

But, being a pioneer or leader is not easy, as Madonna said. It’s has it’s hard times, such as dealing with people that don’t have faith in your ideas. We have to understand that not everyone is going to believe, not everyone is going to follow and that’s okay. We only want a shared interest anyway and if those other people do not share our interests, how much good are they to us?

On one of my CO-OP’s, my mentor said that communications practitioners are “not leaders, but followers.” I blankly stared at her and became very upset. Most PR practitioners do lead, or so I think. The lead through messaging and connecting. We help to create the direction for our employer. How can we not be leaders? It’s like a genetic predisposition to do so, or so I feel.

Madonna isn’t a PR practitioner and Godin doesn't offer co-op positions, but at least the incite movements. Wish one of them had of been my mentor.