Followers and self-leadership

I feel that I need to say a few words about self-leadership. Sometimes I meet people who get a little bit confused when I claim there are no leaders without followers.

“Yeah, there’s self-leadership” they argue.

Now that argument doesn’t make any sense to me. If I need to lead myself in order to get things done, then don’t I also need to follow myself? If your inner leader tells you to put on your shoes and go for a walk, you’ll immediately run into problems if you refuse to follow yourself. You’ll just be standing there with your shoes in your hand.

So no, I don’t think it’s possible to have leaders without followers, even if we talk about self-leadership. And this is why I think it’s so important that we learn more about how and why people follow each other.