Great leadership has many positive traits and influences on a group of people, but the most positive influence that a leader can have on his/her followers is to mold them to become great leaders themselves. That is the best influence of good leadership.
For example, if a company has CEOs who are good leaders, the probability of growing the business is much higher. Consequently, new people will have to be employed due to the growing workload. If the business expands even more, these people who were new employees will at some point become leaders to newer employees, who then may become leaders to even newer employees, etc.
Employees as future leaders
This is especially important because if the company or group becomes big and grows to hundreds or thousands of employees, it becomes impossible for the CEO (main leader) of the company to be in touch and communicate frequently with all his/her employees. That is the main reason why it is important to encourage other employees or group members to become leaders themselves, so they can be assigned the duty of being managers, thereby becoming responsible for the well-being of their workers.
This is a conclusion drawn by Simon Sinek, one of the most popular leadership experts, who quoted Robert Dunbar and said “you just cannot maintain more than 150 close relationships. One limiting factor is time (there isn’t enough time), the other one is memory (you can’t remember everyone)” [1]. That is why encouraging ambitious and potent workers to become leaders themselves is important for big groups and companies.
Leaders as revolutionaries
Or, imagine a brave, young revolutionary fighting for worthy causes, in order to change the state of a corrupted country. A good leader has the capability to encourage others to rise, and then those who have risen would again spread the message to more and more people and mobilize them. A society with more leaders who have honest and positive intentions can grow and create a wonderful place to live. Although this may sound utopian, it is the truth and it is possible.
[1] Simon Sinek. Internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01ZCnCXpG4A [Accessed 29-03-2019]