Taking the lead
We all become “relationship experts” when we are single. I’m aware of this and its fallacies. Yet I will push for the highest standard and deepest reflections in the hopes to continually grow and mature while continually advocating for women.
There is a difference between taking the lead and towering over someone.
Over the past year I have asked a lot of women what they believe a man’s superpower is because after seeing theirs in a way I hadn’t fully perceived before, I needed to understand where a healthy man fit back into that picture.
The same three answers kept coming back.
Lead.
Offer clarity.
Challenge me.
I became convinced that if certain men heard those same words, they would hear the exact opposite of what many of these women were trying to say.
Not once did I hear, “Become my boss.”
Not once did I hear, “Make every decision for me.”
Not once did I hear, “Treat me like your employee.”
Yet that is exactly how many men seem to translate what women are saying.
A few days ago I spent more than four hours trying to explain that distinction to another man, and I left that conversation mentally exhausted.
He believed that by God’s design a wife never truly leads. If she ever appeared to be leading, it was only because her husband had delegated some small portion of his authority to her. He remained the leader. The final decision maker. The one standing above. She remained beneath him by design.
That isn’t taking the lead.
That’s hierarchy.
Those are two entirely different things.
A music manager is one of the clearest ways I know to explain the difference.
A musician asks a manager for help accomplishing what the musician is trying to accomplish. The manager negotiates, organizes, offers clarity, challenges the artist when needed, removes obstacles, opens doors, and spends their time helping the musician reach the future the musician is trying to build.
Meanwhile, the musician never stops being the leader of their own life.
They still decide where they want to go. They still have their own dreams, their own voice, their own personality, and their own calling.
The manager wasn’t invited into that relationship so the musician could begin serving the manager’s dream.
The manager was invited to help carry part of the weight.
Like every metaphor, this one breaks down if you push it too far. Healthy relationships are reciprocal. Both people take the lead at different moments, offer one another clarity, and challenge one another when it’s needed. I’m simply isolating one piece of that dynamic because it’s easier to see.
That is why Elvis is such a tragic example.
What began as helping eventually became manipulation.
What began as offering clarity slowly became control.
What began as taking the lead became ownership.
The manager stopped serving the musician’s dream and slowly began believing the dream belonged to him instead.
That relationship became unhealthy because someone confused being invited to help with becoming entitled to rule.
That is exactly the distinction I was trying to explain.
When women have told me they want a man who leads, offers clarity, and challenges them, I have never heard them asking for a permanent leader.
I have never heard them asking for someone who always has more clarity than they do.
I have never heard them asking to be challenged every time they open their mouths.
Those are moments.
Not permanent positions.
There will be moments when she wants him to step forward.
There will be moments when she is the one stepping forward.
There will be moments when he sees something she cannot see.
There will be moments when she sees something he cannot see.
There will be moments when he needs challenging.
There will be moments when she needs challenging.
The superpower isn’t permanently occupying one of those roles.
The superpower is possessing the humility, awareness, courage, and emotional maturity to read the room and step into whichever one the relationship needs in that moment.
There is a world of difference between helping someone carry a burden and convincing them they were created to carry yours.
A financial advisor works much the same way.
You ask someone to help you accomplish your financial goals. They offer clarity. They challenge your decisions when they believe you’re working against your own interests. They bring perspective that may be difficult to see when you’re emotionally invested.
But they are still working for you.
You didn’t hire a financial advisor so you could start working for them.
The moment they stop serving your goals and begin serving themselves, you fire them.
Again, the metaphor isn’t that a relationship resembles a client and an advisor. It’s that asking someone to help you doesn’t place you beneath them.
Then there is dance.
A woman who wants a man to take the lead isn’t asking to disappear. She isn’t asking to become smaller. She isn’t asking to surrender her intelligence, her instincts, her voice, or her autonomy.
A beautiful dance doesn’t exist because one person dominates the other.
He doesn’t drag her all over the dance floor.
It exists because one person initiates while constantly observing.
Every movement is an invitation.
Every response shapes what comes next.
The lead pays attention.
The follow pays attention.
The dance belongs to both of them.
Taking the lead has never meant towering over someone.
What I wanted that man to understand after four exhausting hours is that many men have confused taking the lead with entitlement.
Then they wrap that entitlement in religion so it becomes almost impossible to question.
The picture becomes a king building his kingdom.
Everyone else exists to help build his dream.
Everyone else is expected to stack stones.
Carry heavier burdens.
Sacrifice more.
Pour themselves into his empire while continually pointing back to his crown as though his position somehow justifies the arrangement.
That isn’t taking the lead.
That isn’t what women have been describing.
That’s hierarchy cosplaying as leadership.
Taking the lead in a healthy relationship has never required another human being to become smaller so you can feel bigger.
It has never required permanent authority.
It has never required someone else’s dreams to become secondary to your own.
It has never required another person’s voice to become quieter so yours sounds louder.
It has always required someone willing to step forward when the moment calls for it, and just as importantly, someone secure enough to step back when someone else is better suited to lead.
Women have spent centuries trying to explain that wanting a man to lead was never permission to be ruled.
I think far too many men have been translating those words through a definition that was never intended.
There is a difference between taking the lead…
and towering over someone.
The world would look very different if more men understood the difference.