Hmm. Leadership that takes you down a path alone may not be leadership -- you aren't leading anyone down the path with you. I agree with the element of courage, but not necessarily with the element of loneliness, in that sense.
Cutting against the grain can be the right answer -- but it's more important for a leader to Do The Right Thing than to be different simply because he feels that being different is more leader-like.
I guess you'd point at investors who "go it alone" as leaders, though I wouldn't say that someone who's investing gobs of cash on a contrarian idea (Warren Buffet?) is a leader so much as he's a great investor. You might also point at an inventor who defies the skeptics to do something that's never been done before, and which people said wasn't possible, as a leader. But really, that guy is a genius who believed in his crazy idea, not really a leader.
Thanks for the thread title, btw, or I never would have found this thread in my name.
Dan