What is leadership, and how do leaders inspire, encourage and empower their followers?
Leadership is carrying a light to brighten the path of people walking in the dark, and making those same people lighten the paths of others.

Leadership commences with an understanding of the reality of the people one is leading. It also requires understanding that privileges possessed by a leader are in fact assets that the leader needs to use in order to make others benefit from them. Leadership is recognizing that any situation or context is comparable to a dark cave inhabited by many people, with some standing still, some walking and others running; the dynamics of the system are not homogenous. A good leader understands that no matter his position, immobile or mobile, he has the capacity to influence and aid those behind him advance past the dark cave. As Kissinger stated, the task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been (Hamilton 1996).
Obviously in any dark cave, it is hard to walk or run because of the high risk of hitting obstacles. In this situation, the leader carries a light (equivalent to one’s assets), but most importantly, uses it to illuminate and elucidate the paths of the people that cannot see where they were going because they lack the capacity, or in this case, the light.
Hoffer says the leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist (Kennedy, 2009). Leaders empower