There are several reasons people pretend they’re not the leader. One reason is a simple mistake. The mistake is that they think it’s mean to tell people what to do, and they want to be nice. They think that being bossy isn’t nice, or having power over people isn’t nice. But that’s silly! Of course it’s oppressive to be someone’s leader if you give them no choice—if you force them to have you as a leader—but a lot of the time people want someone to be their leader, especially if they’ve joined your group.       So in exactly the same way that the rules of a game aren’t oppressive but let you play the game and are where the fun of the game lies, leadership can be useful. It’s what lets you do things. And it’s not cruel.