No Followers, No Leaders

Leadership is often portrayed as being centered solely on the leader—their traits, behaviors, and actions. Followers are relegated to a secondary role, studied for how they react to what leaders do to or for them. However, modern leadership theories reveal that this perspective fails to recognize followers as active creators of leadership, not just passive recipients. Without engaged followers, leadership cannot emerge or exist.

Though leaders play an integral motivational and strategic role, followers empower and enable leadership through their support, participation, and validation of the leader’s authority. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi gained immense influence through his ability to inspire a diverse base of followers to join India's independence movement through nonviolent civil disobedience. Gandhi's actions motivated various groups, from poor laborers to women to lawyers, to coalesce around the moral authority of his vision. In turn, the swelling ranks of dedicated followers willing to protest, boycott, and go to jail emboldened Gandhi to amplify his challenge to British rule.

Steve Jobs catalyzed Apple's revolutionary rise by aligning employees around his compelling vision for designing insanely great products. His demanding, perfectionistic leadership style drove employees to meet nearly impossible standards, as seen in the intensive development of the first Macintosh computer. However, it required talented, devoted followers to bring Jobs' visions to life. When Jobs was ousted and followers became disenchanted, Apple floundered - illustrating the contingency of even visionary leadership on maintaining engaged followers.

While strong leadership relies on engaged followers, leadership can also founder when leaders and followers diverge, as evidenced by President John F. Kennedy's difficulty spearheading civil rights reforms. Despite Kennedy's soaring vision for progress, Congressional leaders representing segregationist constituencies obstructed meaningful change. Kennedy lacked leverage with these crucial followers to effectively catalyze reform. Without support from Southern Democrats, Kennedy made little headway on civil rights before his untimely death. Kennedy's unfulfilled social justice leadership underscores how disaffected followers with conflicting interests can actively constrain leaders. His presidency highlights leadership's contingency on maintaining connected, aligned followership to achieve transformational change.

The examples of Gandhi, Steve Jobs, and JFK reveal essential insights about followership's indispensable role within the leadership process. Engaged, aligned followers empower leaders to translate vision into reality. Without motivated participation from followers, leadership flounders. A leader's effectiveness is contingent on establishing reciprocity with followers and catalyzing their active co-creation of change. Conversely, disaffected followers who withdraw participation obstruct leaders' capacity to lead. Understanding leadership as a tapestry woven from the interwoven threads of leaders and followers illuminates leadership's fundamentally relational essence. This follower-centric view provides vital clarity – leadership never resides in a sole individual but emerges through collaborative meaning-making between leaders and those they seek to lead. Recognizing followers as equal partners rather than passive recipients enables more impactful, ethical and collective leadership.