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A leader is someone who wants to lead and knows what to do next.
People with similar goals gravitate toward the ones of them who take responsibility and are creative enough to start a program of accomplishment.
I could add a lot of detail to the idea, but I wouldn't want to detract from the basic definition. Watch kids on playgrounds. They tend to group themselves around the kids who think up the games, assign the roles, and help everybody else find their place. If the adults aren't interfering, kids find their leaders quickly.
Leadership is not the same thing as "being in a position of leadership." People get into such positions because somebody put them there. It's often their Daddy, or maybe just a sugar-daddy. People holding political office didn't necessarily get there because of their sterling characteristics. They got there because somebody else wanted them there. Nearly all political leaders are simple opportunists -- people looking out for themselves without regard to any particular principles. In businesses, our "leaders" are more likely to be antagonistic toward the interests of the people they are "leading." They were put in place by the bosses and the owners and that's who they serve.
Union leaders are much more likely to have "risen from the ranks," but even in unions opportunism prevails much of the time. It's pretty hard to get elected to union office without some help from somebody higher up, but it happens.
Really good leaders are the ones who know when to lead and when to follow, when to talk and when to listen. As I grew a lot older, I improved somewhat, but I generally talked when I should have listened, and consequently have not been as effective as I would have liked.
On January 21, 2017, as the Trump government began to display the crisis in America, I told a Dallas audience "I know what to do." The long video is on youtube at https://youtu.be/HkJTBUYgQkQ. Check it out and decide whether or not I know what to do.
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