Why the best leaders never stopped following

By Dr. Toye Sobande · First published in BusinessDay, 4 September 2026

Many executives treat followership as something they left behind on the way up. The first column in Dr. Sobande’s series on followership argues the opposite: the discipline of following well is what makes a leader worth trusting with more authority.

The argument

Institutions built to last, from armies to religious orders, have long trained people to submit to authority before handing them any. That was not an accident. Learning to serve under someone else builds the restraint, judgement and loyalty that power later demands.

Almost no leader stops answering to someone: a board, a regulator, a constitution or a founding mission. Leaders who forget this tend to drift into one of two unhelpful postures, the agreeable yes-man or the resentful critic, and neither is trusted with greater responsibility.

Key takeaways

• Leadership and followership are one skill seen from two sides.
• Every leader still follows someone or something; the question is how well.
• Good followers disagree openly before a decision and commit fully after it.
• Leaders who stop following well lose the trust that earns them more authority.
• Hold yourself to the standards of followership you expect from your own team.

“They are two halves of a single skill”

Dr. Toye Sobande

A question to take away

Who do you answer to today, and would they describe you as someone who follows well?