My answer: Not necessarily. Leadership, especially for start-ups, is about creating, communicating and empowering in relation to a vision. You can learn by fol

My answer: Not necessarily. Leadership, especially for start-ups, is about creating, communicating and empowering in relation to a vision. You can learn by following, but most likely you will become an outstanding leader by doing instead of following, ie. by doing what leaders do. All your statements statements "lead" towards the follow then lead direction. In my opinion its more interesting to know your followers, as there are good and bad. Especially for start-ups it is useful to have the _right_ type of followers, namely in activists and diehards. There's a pretty good HBR article about this from this past December titled "What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers." A must read for aspiring leaders! -oscar