17 Following -- about being followed or about following or both?

What's your sense? Is 17 primarily about getting someone or something else -- external or internal -- to follow you or vice-versa?

Is it about being a leader or learning to follow someone or something else as the leader?

Or is it about both?

My own experience seems to be (though I could be wrong) that 17 seems to me to be more about stepping up and acting as leader/acquiring followers than about my following something or someone else.