David Foster Wallace on Leadership, Illustrated and Read by Debbie Millman

leaders. He relies on what might be called the plenipotentiary model—empowering trusted, skilled people on his behalf to execute the bold vision he has created.

It comes down to both an individual and collective sense of where and how people choose to be led. In a very real sense, followers lead by choosing where to be led.

True leadership only exists if people follow when they have the freedom not to.

A leader is someone with a high level of individual agency within an organization, with responsibility for an independent connection to external reality.

immensely empowering for the follower. Jillian had the same experience. “At the highest levels,” she told me, “the leader is leading, absolutely, but part of leading is paying immensely close attention to the follower and her responses. And the follower is responding, but the nature of her response can, in an instant, change everything. The followe

I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.