The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Follow The Leader

The Walking Dead leaders

Learn to recognize when your leader can’t do the job anymore.

The first third of the final season of The Walking Dead ended with Leah Shaw killing her former commander, the leader of her group, and the closest thing she had to a father, Pope.

Why would she kill someone who meant so much to her, you might ask? Simple: Because he’d lost his mind.

If you recall, Leah only took such drastic action after Pope not only ordered a makeshift missile battery be fired into the streets of Meridian where his men were fighting Maggie, Negan, and the walkers they brought with them but also brushed aside Leah’s concerns when she informed him of that fact. He’d become so obsessed with destroying Maggie that he was willing to kill his own men to do it.

The reason I bring this up is that, as important as a good leader is, if something comes along that legitimately destroys their ability to carry out the job of leadership, you can’t afford to have them in charge anymore. You need to recognize this and be ready to do what’s necessary to ensure that your leader doesn’t march you and your group off a cliff.

Suppose you want an idea of what might formally disqualify a leader from carrying out the job. In that case, a good place to start is the example set by Pope: If your leader is willfully choosing to kill off members of your group to carry out some goal of their own, that’s a good sign they need to step down. It’s one thing if members of your group willingly throw down their lives to protect the group or its members or to vanquish a threat, but it’s the a-whole-nother thing when your leader is making the choice for them.

Similarly, if your leader has become consumed by obsession, paranoia, or delusions, then you can’t let them keep leading your group, otherwise, they’ll throw your lives away in pursuit of pointless quests, wild goose chases, or against hopeless odds.

In a zombie apocalypse, a leader is only good so long as they’re sane enough to handle the job. If they start going off the rails, you need to get them to step down before they take your whole group down with them.