The Leader of the Pack

There is a popular leadership post that's been circulating around social media for a number of years.  The post starts with a photograph of a group of wolves traveling in a pack:

The photograph is accompanied by a paragraph explaining its meaning, particularly with regards to leadership, which typically says something like the following:

We can all learn an invaluable lesson on leadership from this wolf pack.  The first three wolves in front are the old and sick.  They set the pace for the entire pack.  If it was the other way around, they would be left behind, losing contact with the pack.  In the case of an ambush, they would be sacrificed.

Then come five strong ones, the front line.  In the center are the rest of the pack members, then the five strongest following.  

Last is alone, the alpha.  He controls everything from the rear.  In that position, he can see everything and decide the direction.  He sees all of the pack.  He ensures no one is left behind.  He keeps the pack tight and on the same path.  He is ready to run in any direction to protect his pack.

Being a leader is not about being in front.  It's about taking care of your team.

It's a beautiful metaphor for leadership and teamwork.  Unfortunately, it's just not true.  Apparently, the photo was taken by Chadden Hunter in 2011 for the BBC series Frozen Planet.  What it actually shows, at least according to the International Wolf Center, is a large pack of wolves traveling through deep snow.  In order to save energy, the group is traveling in single file, with the wolf in front cutting a path through the snow.  With this in mind, it would make no sense for the weaker wolves to be leading up front, as cutting a path through the snow takes a lot of energy and stamina.  

Here is the actual caption for the photograph:

A massive pack of 25 timberwolves hunting bison on the Arctic Circle in northern Canada.  In mid-winter in Wood Buffalo National Park temperatures hover around -40°C.  The wolf pack, led by the alpha female, travel single-file through the deep snow to save energy. The size of the pack is a sign of how rich their prey base is during winter when the bison are more restricted by poor feeding and deep snow. The wolf packs in this National Park are the only wolves in the world that specialize in hunting bison ten times their size. They have grown to be the largest and most powerful wolves on earth.

Note that there is even a dispute about the use of the term "alpha male" or "alpha female".  David Mech (a researcher who founded the International Wolf Center) argued in his 1999 paper "Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs" that the social dominance observed in captive wolves with an "alpha male" and "alpha female" actually doesn't exist in the wild.  Instead, the typical wolf pack is a family with the adult parents guiding the rest of the family in a division-of-labor system.  As I've written in the past, "The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.  

Humans are a lot like wolves, in that we are both social animals (more or less).  And, there is a lot we can learn about leadership and teamwork from wolves.  Perhaps the most important lesson is the one that's in the last line of the caption of the viral photograph above.  "It's about taking care of your team."