Democracy, Leader, Follower

Though 'leader' and 'ruler' are sometimes casually used interchangeably, an important distinction between them can be inferred from one between their respective correlates, 'follower' and 'ruled'.  For, entailed in the former, but not in the latter, is that it becomes, in some respect, like what it follows.  In other words, qua possessing some characteristic, Leader and Follower are equal, but qua order of acquisition of the characteristic, they are not.  So, the Leader-Follower relation has an inherent Democratic structure, but one grounded personally, not imposed from without--its basis is not institutional, but volitional, i. e. a Leader sets an example that a Follower imitates.