Leadership





(SPOILERS: Do I have to give a warning since part of my discussion requires me to cite examples from the Show that could be viewed as spoilers?)














So the show has a lot to say about what makes a good leader, why people follow leaders, and how leaders maintain their authority when they inevitably screw up. And certainly every leader we see on the show has something bad happen to those under their care during their watch (whether they are directly responsible for it or not):

1. Michael (fall of the original tower, deaths of Tommy, Bill, and a bunch of redshirts, Angel's death, Burt's incapacitation and torture)
2. Burt (exile of Lizzy)
3. CJ (fall of Dunbar, loss of life after the convoy massacre)
4. Durai (deaths of numerous Mallers due to battle with the original tower and another convoy massacre on the way to blow up the Arena)
5. Gatekeeper (loss of Colony to the Mallers resulting in numerous Colonist deaths)
6. Marcus (death of Sean, terrorized his own Colonists)
7. Colonel Kimmet (annihilation of both Boulder and Ft. Irwin)

It's also interesting to me that the leader of each of the main groups of survivors had their doubters among those they led at one point or another.

1. For Michael, his Tower experienced some deserters at times (Carly and Simon among others) and had a near revolt by Kelly and Burt.
2. With CJ, Dunbar was dealing with deserters as well, especially after the loss of life after the convoy massacre.
3. As for Durai, it's clear from Scratch's speech that plenty of Mallers were questioning his decision-making that led to deaths of their comrades.

What I get out of "We're Alive" depictions of different types of leaders is that there is a thin line between a successful leader and one whose followers have completely lost faith in him or her. And that line could have something to do with the qualities a particular leader has or it could just be dumb luck that unavoidable disaster happened not to befall the group. Perhaps there was a superior leader to anyone we met who had the brilliant idea of holing up his group in the City's local professional hockey rink after the May 8 initially went down. And maybe there are a group of slackers out there who happened to be on a yacht during the first mass turnings and sailed out to an island that is untouched and unnoticed by any zombies and has managed to survive in spite of their lack of planning abilities.