Exchange of Realities

Another one for the Carnival.

No leader-in-training occupies a vacuum; if they did, who would they be leading? The job, and the people in it, can be just as large a shaper of their abilities and personality as any of yesterday’s factors if not more so. All those adages about power and responsibility? Just because they’re cliché doesn’t make them any less true.

First off, how does the leader view her followers? Does she need to work for their respect, or do they defer to her naturally? (Note that this question applies to different groups, as very few people can manage to get the same reaction from everyone with whom they interact.) How does she react to these different opinions; does she get discouraged by her naysayers? Ignore them because of her supporters? Try to lead everyone the same way? Get overwhelmed by the sheer number of people she has to adapt for?

How much responsibility does she take for her own orders, and for what happens to the people who carry them out? Does she distance herself from her failures and embrace her successes? Vice versa? How much credit do those who carried out the orders get for having carried them out?

Moreover, what happens if she’s dealing with a situation where her followers could be killed due to following her orders? Does she flinch from it? Can she do it? (If she does it, is she still flinching?) How does what ends up happening to said followers affect her, and how is she learning to cope with it? Does she harden to it, try to forget, attempt to work around it in some way? Is her way of dealing with casualties limited to trying to find replacements, or does she take the time to make sure the next of kin are notified and their families provided for? Note that which response is appropriate to the situation depends on many factors, including what she’s leading (death in the line of duty is more expected in an army than, say, a governmental bureaucracy), where she gets her subordinates (conscripts vs. volunteers vs. hires, for instance), what kinds of resources she has available to her and the comparative rank of those involved. These things wouldn’t be near as interesting if they were straightforward.

Then you get into logistics. The larger a group you’re dealing with, the more important it’s likely to be. Armies will need to be fed and sheltered; countries have issues like road maintenance to contend with; a large organization has paperwork to fill out and employees to pay. There might be too many people for what needs to be done, or too few; then there’s the matter of making sure that people are qualified for their positions. Is your leader-in-training taking care of these things herself, or delegating them to someone else? Trying to learn them, or focusing on whatever aspect she’s been giving to deal with and leaving the rest to the experts?

Speaking of which, if there are other people our leader-type needs to work with, how does she view them? Does she look up to them, look down on them, feel they’re too picky about some things and not picky enough about others? Does she object to them sheltering her from certain duties, or complain about them pushing duties on her? This is one that’s probably going to change a great deal as she learns about what said duties entail and why they’re necessary. If they’re used to projecting a certain attitude to all whom they deal with, and she sees them slip, does that change how she views them?

And then there are her own limits, and those of the clock. Any leader of a large group is likely to have to deal with the fact that there is too much to do and not enough hours in the day—and buying time by skipping food or sleep is only going to make it worse in the long run. Learning to adapt to these limitations is an excellent potential character arc. Particularly when other people get involved. A leader might react to advice to tighten up or slow down with either offense or relief (or any emotion in between), and it only gets more complicated as more people come in with conflicting opinions.

Being in charge isn’t easy. But that’s what makes it interesting.