Leadership is based – and here we are referring back to research on group theory – on increasing willingness to follow, as based on the experience that others are also following; in other words, it is based on imitation. Some, then, accept influence because others are doing so and the latter accept influence because the former do so. Where influence over several people is possible and expectable the leader can choose whom to influence and, in addition, he gains options which in turn become an orienting factor for others. The leader becomes independent of concrete conditions of obedience which a given individual could demand of him. The individual relinquishes possibilities which he himself possesses and, should he object, he has to incite the group against the leader.

DEFINE: Frames leadership not as command but as cascading imitation, where followers influence each other rather than merely obeying a directive.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 738