What Followers Want Most From Leaders

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

The voice of the world in numbers

Feb. 18, 2025

Good leaders meet the needs of their followers — but first, they must understand what those needs are. Gallup's latest global study, launched last week at the World Governments Summit, adds to decades of Gallup research into what people need from their leaders. With the topic explored in 52 countries, this study is the most comprehensive examination of the needs of followers on a global scale. Here are the top four insights:

1. What Followers Want

Bar Chart: Hope dominates leadership traits.

The Questions: Gallup asked people in 52 countries two questions: 1) “What leader has the most positive influence on your daily life?” and 2) “Now, please list three words that best describe what this person contributes to your life.”

Respondents could answer the second question with any adjective that came to mind. The open-ended responses were categorized into eight higher-level attributes, grouped together thematically and combined to form the four overall leadership needs of followers.

The Data: Hope stands out as the dominant need across followers, with 56% of all mentions about positive leaders falling under this theme. Inspiration, vision and personal integrity are among the top specific attributes in this category.

2. Hope Is What the World Wants Most

Bar Chart: Four needs of followers: relative percentage of mentions by region.

The Data: The need for hope is evidently universal. Across the six main regions of the world surveyed in this study, people cited aspects of hope more than any other leadership trait as contributing positively to their life.

Variation: Notably, relative to those in other regions like Asia-Pacific, respondents in Europe were slightly less likely to mention hope (53%) and slightly more likely to mention trust (37%). In Latin America, while majorities mentioned hope (56%), this region stood out for people's greater need for compassion (9%).

3. All in the Family

The Data: Among adults, 57% named a family member as having the most positive influence on their lives. Next was a manager (11%), a political figure (7%) and an organizational leader (5%).

Loved Ones Lead: Overall, when combining those who name family members with those who name a friend (5%), just over three in five cite a loved one as the leader with the most positive influence on daily life.

4. A Glimpse of Global Leadership

Table: Top 5 countries most likely to cite certain types of leaders as the most positive influence.

The Data: The types of leaders that people mention vary considerably by country. While the majority of respondents worldwide (57%) named a family member as the most positive influence in their lives, people in Middle Eastern, North African and Eastern European countries named family and friends as their key figures at even higher rates.

Other Leaders: Workplace leaders were most frequently named in countries such as China (70%), Germany (60%), and the UAE (52%). Also, while only 7% worldwide named a political leader, 38% of people in Tanzania named a political leader as the most positive influential leader in their life.

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