You probably have heard someone espouse the idea that success and failure rest primarily on leadership.  You might even subscribe to such a notion.  However, have you ever considered just how important "followership" is to success?  If a leader cannot inspire people to follow, is he truly a leader?  And, if followers refuse to execute a leader's vision, are they actually followers?  The truth is that the two are interdependent -inextricably linked.  One cannot exist without the other.  Each helps to define the other.  I submit that the two concepts, leadership and followership are of equal importance. 

An application of this concept that I am intimately familiar with is the doctor patient relationship.  A physician can use published research, years of study and training as well as the latest diagnostic tools to suggest treatment and lifestyle changes that should be beneficial to her patient.  The patient can adhere closely to these recommendations and reap significant health benefits in the form wellness and longevity.  Diabetes education and smoking cessation serve as good examples.  This is an example of success from good leadership as well as followership. Another scenario would be the patient who refuses to follow the doctor's advice and ultimately suffers from poor health.  Regardless of the potentially beneficial leadership provided, an unwilling follower negates any potential good to be reaped. Truthfully, this can be played out in a wide variety of scenarios. 

• The physician fails to inform patient of potential health risks and the patient fails to educate himself relying solely on the physician's expertise (poor leadership and poor followership)
• The physician out of fatigue gives bad advice. But, the patient educates herself, seeks a second opinion,  and ultimately rejects the bad advice .  The patient then goes a step further to educate the physician of her discovery in order to help other patients (poor leadership and good followership ultimately transforming into good leadership).

In all of these examples, both, the leader and the follower, can be held accountable to some degree for the outcome.   

We have seen this concept interplay at its best and its worst throughout history.  The masses are often eager to follow a leader as long as they can see where she intends to take them.  However, when her vision becomes distant, she soon loses her flock.  The flock becomes disillusioned and rebellious.  Yet history also shows us that our greatest leaders lead from so far ahead that it may take years for the masses to catch up and ultimately follow suit.  And even still, there are those followers who were early adopters, loyal, brave, and farsighted.  These faithful few are committed to the vision in such a way that they at various times seek to hold their leaders accountable.  In fact, these "followers" will evolve into leaders themselves thus continuing the cycle.

I must add that the concept of leadership and followership is independent of morality and dependent upon arbitrary definitions of success.  This of course ties into the "Sow What?" concept.  Leaders can inspire great acts of humanitarianism or mass destruction that is up to the followers to carry out.   -think Jesus and Mother Teresa versus Hitler and the Third Reich.