This article presents a sustainable leader identity construction model that explores daily leader-follower interactions and leadership perceptions held by the followers. It is rooted in the relational perspective of the leadership development process and embraces a follower-centric approach to address the gaps in understanding of sustainable leadership co-construction with the followers, as the primary stakeholders of organizations. The data collected from 18 interviews with middle-managers in two countries, accounting for the cultural context, was used to reproduce schemas held by the followers and was framed into a conceptual model that encompasses leader’s need, task, and people orientation, individual achievement, and satisfaction of the leader’s need(s). The findings unveil cultural, context-related perceptions that differentiate between the leader’s competence and the leader’s authority as key tenets of the leadership. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on sustainable and follower-centric leadership, and provides empirical evidence from two under researched cultural contexts
