I know many people with leadership qualities that would make great leaders.

Unfortunately, they refuse to step into the role of leadership in any capacity.

Their refusal is understandable. It’s stressful. It takes a toll on your mental and physical health — you have the constant pressure of being “on” all the time even when you need a break.

I’m not sure. Wouldn’t not finding leadership stressful be the quintessential leadership quality? Two lines from pop culture come to mind. In The Departed, Jack Nicholson’s crime boss character says something like “Most people are the product of their environment; I want my environment to be a product of me.” On The West Wing, the President says to a senior aide, “The difference between us is that I want to be the guy, and you want to be the guy the guy relies on.” (There’s also a nice play called “Stones in His Pockets” with the dominant metaphor that most of us are extras in someone else’s movie.)

I believe that “alphaness” is largely genetic and recessive at that. The alpha male gets the girls because he has the best chance of siring another alpha, but not all his offspring are alphas. Fred, Donald, and Ivanka appear to be alphas; the others, not so much. (Substantive competence is not necessarily embedded in a desire to lead. Inept alphas are one of God’s little jokes.)

I think that Mr. Boyd does an excellent job describing the conscious manifestation of the non-alpha personality. But I do not believe that leaders “step up” so much as seize opportunity. We need to make leading less artificially stressful by not canceling every would-be leader who steps on the wrong egg-shell. But the burdens of responsibility for outcomes is real, and only those who want their environments to be a product of them, who want to be “the guy” (or “the girl”) should make leadership their life’s work. Like priesthood, leadership is a calling; one has it or one doesn’t.