Principles, Followers, and Legacy: The Real Test of Leadership

Leaders who live by rules aren’t leaders at all; they’re managers, and often not very good ones.

Rules are there to tell you what to do in a fixed situation. They’re blunt instruments that rarely fit the nuance of human behaviour or shifting contexts. Principles are different. Principles guide how you think, how you act, and how you adapt when the unexpected happens. They provide the compass, not the map.

This difference matters. Because leadership without principles drifts into box-ticking and compliance and it creates rule-followers, not inspired followers.

The necessity of followers

Now, here is the uncomfortable truth for many. You can’t call yourself a leader if you don’t have followers.

Subordinates aren’t followers. They’re people bound by contract, hierarchy, rules or circumstance. Followers are those who willingly place their trust in you, who choose to share the journey. That’s why leadership and followership are two sides of the same coin.

I wrote about this before in The Pied Piper of Kent, which shares how real leadership isn’t about shouting louder, but about playing a tune people want to follow. It’s about authentic passion, belief, and creating value that others genuinely care about.

Without followers, you’re not leading. You’re just giving orders.

Ownership: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Leadership also isn’t just about standing at the front. In fact, the best leaders often spend more time behind the team, enabling rather than directing.

That requires ownership. And ownership means embracing the good, the bad, and the ugly. In The Good, The Bad and The Ugly I reflected on how trust is built not by avoiding mistakes but by sharing them, owning them, and moving forward together. Leaders who shield themselves from responsibility lose followership. Leaders who carry responsibility with their teams strengthen it.

Ownership isn’t about the individual. It’s about the collective.

The problem with incrementalism

Change is the constant every leader must face. Some approach it by tinkering at the edges, making small, safe, incremental improvements. Doing this may create temporary gains, in fact it often does, but ultimately it ends up managing decline.

This is because authentic leadership requires renewal. It asks us to think beyond the margins and embrace the possibility of transformation. That’s where foresight comes in. In A Morning in the Life of a Futurist I explored how scenario-thinking and horizon scanning help leaders prepare for multiple futures, not just the predictable one.

If you’re only leading for tomorrow’s numbers, you’re not leading at all. You’re just firefighting.

Legacy as duty

Leadership isn’t a personal accolade; it’s not about you, as you are just a custodian.

Remember that every leader should plan for their organisation to thrive even after they are no longer there, including founders. In fact, especially founders who often struggle to let go, because we are all temporary and therefore leadership is a moment in time, not something you own.

In reality, the real duty of a leader is to leave a positive legacy:

• For their followers, by creating conditions where people can flourish.
• For their successors, by handing on something sustainable, principled, and alive to change.

That’s as true for businesses as it is for governments. Too often in politics, we hear talk of rules, regulations, and conventions. Rarely do we hear talk of principles. We see manifestos launched to win power, only to be diluted or abandoned once power is achieved and legacy is then squandered because the focus is short-term and staying in control, not ensuring the right conditions are in place for whoever is next to succeed.

Business leaders often fall into the same trap, as growth without principles leads to acrimony and stagnation, whilst growth with principles creates resilience and momentum.

The paradox of leadership

Leadership also holds a paradox as on one hand, principles endure, whilst on the other, leaders at all levels in an organisation change. So, think of it this way, renewal is constant, whilst legacy is optional.

Which means the challenge of leadership boils down to two things:

• Living and leading by principles, not rules.
• Building genuine followers, not just subordinates.

Get these two things right, and legacy takes care of itself. Get them wrong, and decline becomes inevitable.

Because in the end, leadership is never about you. It’s about the people who choose to walk with you, and those who will walk after you.