The leader (also called the signal provider or master account) is the trader whose trades are being copied. They trade their own account normally — entering and exiting positions based on their strategy. The follower account automatically mirrors those trades in real time. The key difference is responsibility: the leader is responsible for the trading decisions, while the follower is responsible for choosing the right leader and configuring appropriate risk settings. A good copy trading platform like Signal Trade App gives followers full control — they can set per-account position size limits, daily loss stops, and copy ratios so that a single leader can serve followers with accounts of very different sizes.