“This team that you have here, they will follow your lead. They’ll do what you say. But if they think that you don’t believe in them, it won’t be long before they don’t believe in you.”
– Iris West, The Flash
Season 2, Episode 2, “Flash of Two Worlds”

It is a general truth about human relationships, but especially between leaders and followers, that we repay what we are given in kind. Someone who spews nothing but bile with receive the same. Someone who is supportive and loving will receive the same. Someone who offers strict, reasonable discipline, will be held to that same standard. Someone who offers faith in their fellow man, will receive the same in return. Especially when dealing with something like the authority we give others over us, or who give us authority over them.

Relationships are based on trust. Where that trust is lacking, the connection disintegrates.

If the leaders and followers do not trust each other, that is the foundation of desertion and mutiny. But men and women will follow a leader they trust and love into the depths of Hell itself, even into Death.

Basically: in trust, there is power, and in its lack, there is weakness.