Can there be leaders without followers?

I think the question itself provides an answer. If you are a leader, you must be a leader of something. If there are no followers means there are no leaders and everyeone is essentially equal by the status quo.

Leaders tend to gather strong people around them and theoretically a leader may have no followers at the beggining but if he or she were to be an actual leader, they would round up to the leader as followers.

All in all, the answer to the question is both yes and no, with a more stronger objective points going towards no, leaders cannot be without followers.