Optimus Prime's Weakness of Leadership

Through a slightly bizarre sequence of events, that I'm not going to elaborate on, I found myself thinking once more about my great role-models for leadership. There are several of these, but two stand head and shoulders over the others: Jean-Luc Picard and, of course, Optimus Prime. Each of these has many fine qualities that tend towards exceptional leadership, including the ability to motivate and direct a diverse team so that they become more than the sum of their parts.

However, last time I found myself musing on Optimus Prime's leadership technique I found myself unavoidably recognizing one key weakness (and it's one I was reminded of again today). Ironically, it's something that I suspect the writers included thinking it showed the character's strength as a leader, not realizing it was the opposite.

Specifically, there are a number of times when Optimus is absent or unavailable: he gets injured, or captured, or dies, and at these times suddenly the team starts to unravel - there's no clear direction, everyone starts pulling in different directions, and nothing much gets done. Then Optimus (or in one case Rodimus) steps in and pulls things back together and all is well again.

I think that's supposed to show just how important the good leader is to the team. And it's true - a good leader is of huge importance to a team and can indeed cause the team to become more than the sum of its parts.

But...

It's also the case that there will be times when the team has to function in the absence of that leader, and one of the attributes of a good leader is that they will have prepared for exactly that eventuality. I can demonstrate this most effectively by referencing the other paragon on my list: in "Best of Both Worlds" Jean-Luc Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg, and the crew of the Enterprise have to manage in his absence.

And so what happens is that Riker, the nominated First Officer, steps up and assumes command. And for the remainder of the story he provides the direction and leadership. But even there, it's not quite as simple as one person replacing another - prior to that event Picard has established a clear culture within the crew such that everyone knows their role, everyone knows the expectations of how things need to be done, and so when Picard isn't there things just click into place.

Having a good leader in place is invaluable. But a big part of that is how they prepare the team for their absence. And, unfortunately, that was a weakness I was forced to recognize in my hero.