If nobody follows you, you are not a leader

Don Quixote thought he was a leader, but other than the faithful Sancho Panza, nobody was following him.

If nobody follows you, you are not a leader.

Hat tip to Morgan DaCosta today for nudging me to a post that talks about Followership.

My definition of leadership and also the title of an earlier post:

A leader is someone others choose to follow

Now, to a post using the analogy of Don Quixote: “Don’t be more than one hilltop ahead”, an excerpt:

Don Quixote by Cervantes was one of the first great novels, published in the early 1600s.

The lead character lived a fantasy life, head in the clouds, detached from reality. Read the story and choose your own description!

He declared himself a knight, seeking chivalrous quests, often to save people from terrible fates.

Now you have a picture of this figure lost in fantasy, imagine Don Quixote on his horse, and imagining in his fantasy world he was the leader of a great army who all followed him as he leads from the front on his horse.

Though in reality his horse was constantly exhausted, he would have considered it a mighty and strong steed, and also his huge (of course!) army of foot soldiers so…