Leaders have followers not slaves

Always wanting to be a good leader I have tried looking at what made other leaders as "leaders". One of the things that hit me was that most of these leaders that were successful are mild mannered, respected individuals and not tyrants or dictators. Tyrants and dictators become leaders but they always end up falling. Usually a very tragic and painful drop from fame.

So what is this quality that truly made up the leader. I think that quality is the leader always commanded the respect of the people that they led. They made their subordinates look up to them rather than be scared of them. They always tended to put the interests of the subordinate first before their own. They were willing to give up the best for their subordinates before thinking of keeping it for themselves.

All of this is very hard to achieve as it expects a very selfless way of thinking but I do feel that if one can even get close to doing the things I mentioned above they will surely become powerful and strong leaders.