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

The Walking Dead last season

Power requires competence.

I think that, of all of the awful things Pamela Milton did to her own community in the Walking Dead series finale, the worst might have been her scheme to draw large herds of walkers to the Commonwealth to serve as the auspices to order lockdowns of all Commonwealth citizens as a means of silencing dissent. This isn’t necessarily because of the manipulative and underhanded scheme (though that was bad) but rather because of how spectacularly she bungled it. I can almost forgive the scheme, but I can’t forgive the stupidity of its execution.

With her troopers miles outside of the Commonwealth’s perimeter, shepherding the dead toward the community, none of them bothered to actually monitor what the dead were doing until it was too late, failing to notice one not simply paw at their jeep but begin to actually grab onto it.

Then, rather than devise a strategy to fight the dead once they breached the perimeter, she instead tells Colonel Vickers to direct them to the lower wards of the Commonwealth to buy her and her donors time to hole up in their mansions. If that did work, and everyone else dying had bought her some time, all it would have done is create more zombies for her, her cronies, and the troopers to have to deal with. Did she not think this plan through at all?

Honestly, I can’t think of any other leader of a group in The Walking Dead who managed to screw things up for themselves so badly. The Governor didn’t do it, Negan didn’t, Alpha didn’t, and Rick certainly didn’t do it

Should you discover the leader of your group shares similar levels of incompetence, you need to ditch them immediately because someone so incompetent, so boneheaded, is bound not only to make a mistake but a fatal one for your group.

If your leader isn’t competent, then maybe, just maybe…they shouldn’t be leading.

And that’s our Walking Dead Survival Rule Of The Week! A zombie apocalypse will be chaotic. The arrival of the dead will throw civilization into disarray and turn people against each other. Because of this, a successful group of survivors needs good leadership. The key word, though, is “good”. If your leadership is unhinged, self-serving, or manipulative, not only are they not working in your best interests, they might be actively dangerous to you and your group. If you have such leaders, it would be a good idea to find a new group, or get rid of the bad leadership you got, before they lead you to disaster. If you want an idea of what a good leader in the apocalypse should be like, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, and on iTunes here!