A leader is someone people choose to follow. Most bosses aren't leaders.

If you have romantic notions of what leaders and leadership is, then sure, that’s a wonderful definition!

Thing is, if you’re in a position of leadership, you’re a leader. If people answer to you and you are in charge of them in any capacity, office, battlefield, whatever, then you’re a leader. Sometimes even in an unofficial capacity if you take it upon yourself to be the get shit done guy and protect others in your group from fallout; this could be called assuming leadership, and if you do it well, people might turn to you as a leader and choose to follow you.

The President of the United States is a leader. He’s elected in a contentious election, and he is the leader of the government’s civil service and diplomacy corps. as well as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, even if there are people in their ranks that voted for a different guy.

Now whether a leader practices leadership, or is a good leader are entirely different questions. You don’t have to respect your leaders, or like them, for them to be leaders.

I think calling a position of authority a position of leadership is a mistake too. Someone assuming leadership shows the difference.

A contentious election is still an election. We have words like dictator and ruler for unelected political bosses.

It is an election in which members of the government and Armed Forces can expressly choose a different guy to follow and lose, whilst still having their top leader not only replaced, but empowered to replace every member in the chain of command replaced by the person they didn’t choose.

Which is totally legitimate, the President is elected through a constitutional process which is our law. That’s also why I think it makes a great counterpoint to your original assertion: you can choose who you want to follow, but who you actually follow isn’t always who you would choose.

If you join a company either because you like the CEO or you like the guy you’ll be immediately reporting to, everyone else in that chain was chosen by someone else. Your lack of choice in the matter does not absolve them of their responsibility to be leaders, the question becomes whether they have the qualities necessary to be good leaders. And if you are the CEO or directly report to him? Great! You win! Now you’re the guy others are looking up to and hopefully you have good leadership qualities yourself because people will look to you for leadership whether you want them to or not.

Not liking the person other people voted for doesn't change the fact people voted for them. We have words like commander for the military.

Accepting someone has power over you isn't following them. We don't call prisoners followers for example.

I think giving out titles only when people earn them encourages responsibility.

How many people chose to follow Jobs, though? If you got hired by Apple, you worked for him. Apple didn't have a democratic vote with every single employee every year and Jobs turned out to be the winner...

Or are you saying that Jobs wasn't a leader either?

Or maybe you mean that a leader is someone who people follow, and would choose to follow if they were given a choice?

Sorry, maybe kind of nitpicky, but I feel like you're on the edge of saying something important and accurate, but this isn't quite it.

I don’t mind looking for a better way to express the idea.

We don't call people with no choice followers usually. So I think following someone is a choice even when going where they tell you isn't.

It can be ambiguous. Some people joined Apple to work for Jobs. And he was famous for his management style. But I don't know how many people saw him as a leader and how many saw him as the boss.