All leaders have to learn to wear the mask of leadership. As followers, we want to follow leaders we respect and admire, even if occasionally we have to follow leaders who fall short. To be a leader that followers want to follow, we have to live up to their expectations. We have to be the best of who we are and we have to adapt our style to our role.

In traditional societies, wearing the mask is not a metaphor: it is reality, as I discovered in a shabby town in Papua New Guinea. I fell in with some dangerous looking locals: they were dressed in second-hand clothes from the west. One sported a T-shirt advertising the Tijuana Rock Festival 1992, with a picture of a joint on it. A day later, we reached the village where these locals lived. The Tijuana rock festival person changed into his formal gear: grass skirt, body paint and an immense headdress made from bird of paradise feathers. It was Chief John in all his finery. He transformed himself from another local layabout into a regal chief.