That's a very meaningful image, and that's who Rand needed to be along. A protector, a shepherd (too bad that wasn't LTT's title, Rand would have understood right away!).

Rand has totally forgotten how you protect lambs from the big bad wolf, and how you make them follow you. Screaming at them and try to force them to obey you won't work. No more with sheep than human beings. Being a dragon would have no success with sheep, no more than Rand has had trying to make people obey him. Most fear him and grovel at his feet when he's around, and hasten to flee, return to their own interests or scheme against him as soon as his back his turned. They fear him, but they don't respect him, and they sure don't like him. That's the sort of followers you get when you're a tyrant. The other downside of Rand's attempts to control everything and be in charge of everything is that most people who follow him have managed to delude themselves that the LB is Rand's duty and fight. Rand's done a terrible job at making people understand it's everyone's Last Battle. Very few people among Rand's followers are dedicated and strong enough to think otherwise (that would include Cadsuane, Nynaeve, Lan, Verin, Loial, Berelain, Egwene, Perrin, Bashere, Logain etc.... and people Rand has left alone, like Borderland farmers, the TR folk etc. They don't wait for Rand to come and tell them what to do to fight the Shadow. The nobles "following" Rand do. They're so terrorized by him they do nothing unless he orders them, and if these orders don't please them, they'll seek ways to avoid obeying. Pathetic bunch...

There's more wisdom in his personal experience as shepherd than Rand has realized, and in a large part it's why he had to re learn to be Rand al'Thor. After DM, he's more than halfway there, and perhaps completely there. He has very little time to turn himself into an inspirational leader and protector.

It's in part Moiraine's failing. She is a high ranking noble, born into a position of authority, and to her a leader is a ruler. Elayne had the right of it in a way, as the Andoran conception of a noble/ruler is that of a shepherd of the Andorans. She tried to teach that to Rand, who loved to be that sort of ruler (a bit naively..) but Moiraine called him down for his shepherding. Rand came to see things her way, made himself harder and harder, and after Moiraine wasn't there anymore to keep teaching him and show him he was going too far, he became a tyrant.

Unsurprisingly, the people who love Rand the most still are the probably the Tairen commoners. They honor his acts in Tear to protect them from the "wolves" (the tyrannical high lords in this case) by naming inns after him and all. If Rand were to call people to follow him to TG, the commoners of Tear would probably be among the first to answer the call.

Rand isn't a bad person (not at all, more the opposite) but what happened to him has taken its tolls. In Kod/TGS, he was full of good intentions for AD, again returning to a role of protector and saviour, but his darkness made it impossible. Soon enough, he was feeding the people with one hand and terrorizing the country from the other hand. Then, he abandonned the country to its fate, destroyed all the hopes he had sparked, as if all the Domani were responsible for his failure with Tuon, or Graendal's doings. All the Domani will remember of him is his coming to spread even more chaos, giving them false hopes, sending their last military commander elsewhere, and then abandonning them all to their fate. Fortuona would invade tomorrow they'd welcome her with open arms. With good reasons.

This is another thing Cadsuane sought to change: Rand's style of leadership. She hated his tyranny over the Asha'man and everybody else. That too is probably on the way of being overturned by Rand's epiphany on DM. Rand remembers Rand now, and all he needs to remember still is how a shepherd protect his flocks and defeats the threats to it.