I am not a leader. I am not a follower. I am the person who works the best and fastest on my own.

I have some leadership opportunities, chairing one committee in my department. I don’t feel I do a good job of it. People let me do it, but I feel like (American proverb here) a fish out of water when I do it.

As a follower, I am impatient. Mercifully, my chair and assistant chair believe in short faculty meetings, so following is not

so painful. I do what I’m told, so I’m not a bad follower, I guess, but it’s not my natural state of being.

I really want to be in my own office, completing tasks from my personal checklist. When I have scheduled time, I’m a rockstar, checking things off my list. I prefer brainstorming on my own to sitting in a meeting. And when I brainstorm with others, I prefer they be an equal to either a superior or a follower.

Left to my own, I’m a loner, I guess. If I have to choose between leader and follower, I would be a follower, but it’s not my natural state. I’d rather work on my own, thank you.

Are you a leader or a follower?

I think there’s a third choice not mentioned here. I am neither a leader nor a follower, but a — what would you call it in one word — a loner?

That’s not the right word, evoking as it does gunmen in warehouses. What I mean to say is that I go in my own direction, work independently whenever possible. I tend to be an impatient person, and want to get right to business. I used to be in a department where the first 15 minutes of any meeting was spent with conversations that went like:

“I saw (name of former student) the other day. Remember her?” “Wasn’t she related to (this other person)?” “She married that farmer out in (name of town) last year.” That drove me up a wall, especially as a new person who didn’t know who (name of former student) was. But most of all, it bothered me because it was not on the agenda.

I have been the leader (of a committee in my department) and a follower (most other times I’ve been in groups). As a leader, I tend to feel impotent because I can’t get the group to make a decision. And as a follower, I get impatient. I find myself pretty predictable, on the other hand, and I can brainstorm and chug along to solve problems.

So I’m an independent, happiest solving problems and making plans by myself. How does this work out in marriage? My husband and I have an egalitarian marriage, so we’re neither leaders or followers, and that’s the way I like it.