It is. Swing dancing, anyway.
The follower has to trust the lead explicitly because what the lead does, the follower must also do. To do a move, the lead must initiate it, and the follower must trust him to lead them into the right motion for the right move. It's like how a blind man must trust his seeing-eye dog to lead him and to obey his directions, a follower must trust her lead to direct her - and her lead must trust her to follow his direction. On occasion it is possible for a follower to "back lead" (like back-seat driving) but it is rare and usually used when the lead is unsure of how to complete a move.
A good follower is only as good as her lead. A good follower has complete and total trust in her partner enough to follow his lead wherever it takes them, even if their arms end up tangled. This puts more pressure on the lead to know what the heck he's doing.
Last night one of the senior dancers came up to me during the dance sessions offered after the actual "lesson" is over. I was standing on the side, watching everyone dance because like a few other people, I didn't have a partner. And so he dragged me out on the dance floor and assured me that he wouldn't do anything too complicated before pulling me into a spin. We hardly ever stood still, as he pulled me into "inside turns" and "outside turns", "arm slides" and "washing machines". He improvised a few times, to see how I would follow, and I did what I thought was right. At the end of the song he tucked me and we did a lean dip. I messed up a lot, but I hardly fumbled because my lead had good confidence and knew exactly what he was doing and when he wanted to do it. I was a good dance partner that hardly fumbled because my lead had that confidence.
When the song was over, someone else danced with me, someone who was just learning, like me. Together we fumbled and stumbled and got our arms tangled because he was unsure of himself and either panicked or got confused with the music. His confidence, or lack of, carried over to me and made me nervous and jittery and resulted in tangled arms and running into each other during turns.
A follower and a lead must have perfect confidence in themselves and each other. The dip at the end of the song punctuates this fact. The lead must trust the follower to follow his lead and lean with him; the follower must trust the lead to not drop her and also to support her when she does her portion of the lean.
Dancing opens you up, and dancing with a partner teaches you to trust.
~E
:-)
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