Does leadership go up the chain of command?

I hate cliche' answers because they don't focus much on reality vs. nirvana. Seniors should lead and work to have their juniors grow up to take over. Juniors should be in sponge mode and learn what good leadership can do for you. It makes life easier for everyone around, including you, and keeps people alive. The more senior you get, the more expendable you should be because any number of your staff can fill in or take over. At some point you'll realize like I did that some leaders should go further than you. At that point, push them up and support them. Others should be held back. Make that happen too. Why? If your focus is on getting stuff done while taking care of your people, you'll work to limit the flaming Alpha Hotels while giving those who have vast potential opportunity. Good leaders absorb the arrows from above so their good folk can get on with their lives. Sometimes you get damaged by those arrows. But then again, bringing your people home alive is vastly superior to the alternatives.

"You're either coaching it or allowing it to happen."
That is as true in the military as it is in sports.
That's not to say that a COL allowed a Lance Coolie to get a DUI, the Lance Coolie next to him allowed it to happen.
But that Lance Coolie allowed it to happen because the CPL and SGT that deal with him 12 hours a day allow things to happen, because the Staff and Gunny that deal with them allow things to happen, because the CPT they work for allows things to happen, etc.

Leadership goes down, across and up the chain of command.
I learned as much about leadership from my peers and subordinates as I ever learned from my supervisors.

It absolutely should, but not always.

It's not 100% true, but also not 100% false. Leaders definitely influence troops in either a positive or negative way, and sometimes they do impact a subordinate so strongly that it completely changes their trajectory. But there are some knuckleheads who will keep behaving or performing poorly no matter how good their leadership. And there are some warriors that will persevere and do the right thing no matter how messed up people above and around them are. And of course everybody else on a sliding scale of the spectrum in between.

Yeah, I think if the least powerful were held to high standards, or demonstrated high standards, and that was a reflection of the culture and higher echelons, then leadership can move upward. I don't think it always happens, but it is plausible, and maybe should be the gold standard of leadership.

There is truth to it. Take for instance a previous post here on RP in which the poster called out the fact that leadership routinely flouted the regulation about smoking and tobacco use and yet expected that the juniors would follow the regulations. Some posters commenting their experiences that did not contradict the poster.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/35435368/Allix__N._and_Gronn__P._-_Leadership_as_a_Manifestation_of_Knowledge.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DLeadershipas_a_Manifestation_of_Knowledg.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20190720%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190720T160339Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=d15f31e23cc88b03a6f1db6172f6bd4389767ab124f9d0c55c0835543dca87ca

Here's the link from that page, showing the title, which I'd actually found quite interesting phrasing....

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=leadership+as+a+a+manifestation+of+knowledge+nicholas+allix&btnG=

There's an article on this page you might find of interest, the link here, I think, should let you download it, I'd thought it of interest, on leadership, I'd sent it in as a separate thread, though the link I'd used was apparently giving aggravation, so try the one here, you should be able to get the PDF as a freebie, I was able to from here....

Some people succeed because of their leaders. Others succeed despite them. Same can be said of failure.

I once had a PFC who was radically overweight - like young male taping out in the 34% range overweight. I was this PFCs third NCO in the unit, and he was assigned to me because I was the NCO that my 1SG gave all of the "leadership challenges" to. 1SG, CSM, CO, and BC all took an active interest in this kid (he was well liked and phenomenal at what he did, MOS-wise). He ended up being chaptered on weight control. You can't tell me that three junior NCOs (I was a SSG at the time), two senior NCOs, and two Commanders were ALL failures as leaders. He just failed as a Soldier.

So yes, as a general philosophy, it works. As a specific philosophy, not so much.