How being a good follower helped me become a good leader

I don’t experience leadership as a clean divide between those who lead and those who follow. In practice, it has always felt more fluid than that. Yes, there are people who set the tone, define the strategy, decide the direction. But within that framework, others are not simply executing. They are interpreting, questioning, shaping, and deciding how much of themselves they are willing to invest.

If I have learned anything from being in those positions, it is that following is not the absence of agency. It is a dynamic process, one that asks for judgement rather than compliance. You are constantly assessing whether a direction makes sense to you, whether it is coherent, whether it deserves your attention. That inner negotiation is easy to overlook, but it shapes the quality of everything that comes after.

I have also learned that I follow best when I am learning. Kindness matters, and so does feeling respected, but what keeps me engaged is the sense that I am being stretched. I am drawn to people who lead with curiosity, who leave room for questions, who treat understanding as something to be shared rather than guarded.

For me, everything hinges on the why. Why are we doing this. Why this approach, in this moment, with these priorities. When that context is missing, effort starts to feel mechanical. When it is present, I can stay with the work even when it is difficult or messy. Not because I agree with every choice, but because I understand what the choice is trying to move toward.

Indirectly, this has shaped how I think about leadership itself. I am not interested in leading for the sake of directing others. I am interested in acting from intention, in being able to explain what something is in service of. That need to understand, to keep discovering, has followed me across roles and settings, and it hasn’t softened with time.

No leader exists without others willing to align themselves with a direction and carry it forward. History makes that obvious. Movements only grow because people choose to stand behind an idea and make it real. Seeing following as lesser misses that mutual dependence. Learning how to contribute under someone else’s lead has shown me something important, even early on: leadership and following are not opposites. They are part of the same motion.