In your description, that is me all over; it is fear of ridicule.
I do both depending upon the situation I find myself in. At work I now follow the instructions I am given, there are times when I need to go off the page in order to get the job done and I'm happy taking control. In past careers I was always in charge as I was the boss, but learnt to defer to my staff if they came up with a solution I hadn't seen.
Socially, I am not really a leader, preferring to follow the lead of those around me as I believe their skills at negotiating the social maze are better than mine.
Fear of ridicule! Exactly!
At work, I prefer to be told what to do. I don't like taking initiative out of fear for messing everything up.
I went back to my birth country, last year on my own ( wow that was frightening) and had to take coaches to get to certain places. Once on the coach I was ok, but when it was getting close to me getting off, that is where the: little girl in me kicks in and I flounder big time, that I am going to miss my stop or just make an absolute fool of myself. I guess it comes down to feeling so insecure that you feel exposed!
Whenever I take public transportation to a place I've never been before, I'm lightly panicking the entire time, looking over the directions I took prior constantly until I reach my stop. So it's this constant feeling of anxiety I feel from the moment I get on the bus that slowly escalates until I reach my location. I can relate.
I do tend to be effective if I want to help gear a group toward an ideal or goal, I think if I personally support it.
If it's something I'm confident in, or if it comes down to building something (I'm good at building things) I will try to indirectly take the lead without actually leading. For example, if the person I'm working with does it wrong, I will constantly say "Or maybe we should do it like this."
I do feel that your concern over doing something that may look odd,
Ovrthkr817, is a different thing - I have the same anxiety and also wait till someone else does a thing so I can see the accepted way to do it myself, but if I know what to do already I have no problem doing it first.
.. I've actually noticed that many people share similar anxiety anyway, whether NT or AS/ASD - when you walk into a restaurant, do you find a table or wait to be shown to one? I'm always concerned about this, but I see that others are too and that tends to alleviate my worry somewhat - never think you're always going to make a fool of yourself, everyone does sometimes and almost everyone ignores it anyway.. it's just that we're sensitive souls
Unfortunately, even when I know what to do, depending on how confident I am in that situation, I'll still wait for someone to confirm with me the right thing to do. Unless my waiting on someone takes too long, I'll just go ahead a do it, then bring it back up to someone later.
About the restaurant question, it depends. As long as their's a booth of some sort or a corner, I don't have to wait to be seated, that's where I'm headed. I'm never too concerned about that. I do however need to let a little loose and stop being so scared of making a fool of myself. Because when I spend hours thinking about an embarrassing moment after t's happened, others have forgotten about it 5 minutes later. It is hard though.
As a child, my report cards said things like, "needs to learn to be a follower" and "has a tendency to take over activities". Over time, my teachers wore me down and, with the added pressure to fit in with my peers, I started to try to take a back seat, so to speak. I HATED working in groups precisely because I wanted to take charge and was discouraged from doing so.
I can only lead myself with any confidence. I can deal with my own complaints when things don't go as planned.
Throw others into the mix, and I'll only lead reluctantly, or if things are close to a crisis. I'd prefer to make loose plans and know that everyone else is capable and self sufficient. That doesn't happen often. It seems that a lot of people want to be "on the same team", and I find that usually means they want me to follow along with them. While I'm not quite a lone wolf, I'm not great at being a team member, unless the rules are explicitly laid out, like in baseball.
I never liked working in groups, I always prefer to work alone. But when I had to, I never took initiative. I just waited to be told what to do and went along with it. I think the only way I can really work in a group is if the group designates tasks to individuals so I'm still technically working alone.
I don't follow well, at all, but I don't want to lead anybody. (Don't tell me what to do, and don't have expectations)... Is their another box?.... I was part of a large psychological test on authority/comformity/follow the herd type thinking once. There were about 100 of us high school age, assigned to sit in a room and the powers that be put a record on a record player of some annoying western cowboy type music, and then we were ordered to copy a very long essay onto binder paper. The music kept repeating. A couple people asked "why are we doing this?", and the answer was just, "it is a mandatory work time". I got up and collected my stuff and walked out, well aware all eyes were on my back as I did so. But when I got out into the hallway, there were more official type people out there; I though uh-oh, they're going to force me back in there and it's going to get ugly because I'm not going back in there. Instead, they smiled, shook my hand, and said, "cool, you're the first female to leave, congratulations."
I've never been apart of any type of social experiment, but I admire you guts to get up and leave. I probably would have stayed. I'd like to think that in a different situation, depending on what they asked me to do, I may not get up and leave, but I would probably just sit there and not do the work I was asked to do.
