The reason in my mind leadership is so valued is that there are problems worth solving that are too big for any one person to solve- anything from building companies to conquering vast swathes of land (which was considered a good thing a long time ago) - so being able to lead people in a cohesive fashion to solve these problems is a de facto requirement of leadership!

Having said that certain cases of "Thought leadership" which is one kind of leadership probably agrees with her blog.For example all leading scientists who make fundamental contributions to our understanding don't really need people following them but they do set the direction of future research so people do indirectly follow their leadsership