"Leadership is what matters." We screen for it, promote for it, and blame it when things go wrong — while treating "follower" as a word nobody wants attached to them. But you can't lead an empty room.

In Lie No. 7 of Lies of HR, we take it apart: why leadership is a relationship rather than a title, what Robert Kelley's followership research reveals about the yes-people, the cynics and the exemplary few, why Ira Chaleff's "courageous follower" is the most valuable person in your organisation — and why this suddenly matters far more in the age of AI, when the confident authority everyone nods along to is an algorithm. Then the reframe: build a culture where challenge is rewarded, and treat AI's answers as proposals, not orders.

The voices are AI; the arguments come from Martin Spiteri Schillig's sixteen years in HR. ...