When things run smoothly, leadership can look invisible. When they don't, legitimacy becomes the whole game. Leadership theorists Zelditch and Walker named three sources of legitimacy in 1984 and the framework still works: authorization from above, endorsement from peers and subordinates, and propriety, the quiet individual judgment each follower makes about whether a leader is worth following. The first two can be granted. The third has to be earned, and it can be lost fast.