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[OB] Leadership in roshar


Kira0147

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Hello everyone !

As you all must have noticed, the notion of leadership is very present in roshar, with so many kings, monarchs, windrunners and so on...

I wanted to hear your opinion about who is the best leader among our proagonists, is it Dalinar ? Kaladin ? Jasnah ?

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Kaladin. He can make everyone obey him, trust him, admire him, and love him. He loves his men, is more determined than a highstorm, and is also able to grant Surges to his men. 

Dalinar is a good leader, but has a hard time making people obey him in the same way. People do not like him the way they like Kaladin.

Jasnah is great at telling people what to do, but she lacks the social interaction part. Kaladin, Dalinar, Adolin, Amaram, Sadeas are all more competent than she is when it comes to interacting with people, which is an important skill to have when you lead.

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On 4/21/2018 at 6:36 PM, Toaster Retribution said:

Jasnah is great at telling people what to do, but she lacks the social interaction part. Kaladin, Dalinar, Adolin, Amaram, Sadeas are all more competent than she is when it comes to interacting with people, which is an important skill to have when you lead.

Perhaps Sadeas is competent when it comes to interacting with certain people (namely Gavilar and Elhokar) but my impression is that those people are few and far between.  This certainly contributed to poor leadership of his army and warcamp at the Shattered Plains (for which Odium thanks him).  Sure, Sadeas imposed a relentless drive to 'win' gemheart races, but on the whole Sebarial strikes me as a better leader, if only because he's capable of successfully delegating the bulk of the work.

As for Kaladin, I think he still has a major issue with becoming too emotionally invested with the people he leads.  Perhaps this could also be phrased along the lines that he considers himself more a protector than anything else (which may well be relevant to his fourth ideal).  While his caring so deeply does help in some situations, we saw how it led to his breakdown in Kholinar, and his perceived failure to protect 'his people' was also shown to play a role in some of his earlier depressive episodes.  This also limits the scale on which he can lead---he can't care about an army or a country the way he cares about and inspires his squad.

I think Adolin does better in this respect, while also being able to motivate obedience, loyalty, trust, even admiration.  It's true that we haven't seen Adolin inspiring anyone as beaten down as Bridge Four.  And his reluctance to become king also shows that he doesn't (currently) consider himself capable of that particular leadership role.  Of course, Kaladin hasn't had to wrestle with political leadership of the sort that Adolin is worried about and Dalinar is having such trouble with.

So I ended up thinking about this a lot more than I anticipated, and after that reflection I'm going to hail Navani as the leader I'd want.  I'm also looking forward to seeing more of Fen in future books.

Edited by daschaich
Fix typo
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3 hours ago, daschaich said:

Perhaps Sadeas is competent when it comes to interacting with certain people (namely Gavilar and Elhokar) but my impression is that those people are few and far between.  This certainly contributed to poor leadership of his army and warcamp at the Shattered Plains (for which Odium thanks him).  Sure, Sadeas imposed a relentless drive to 'win' gemheart races, but on the whole Sebarial strikes me as a better leader, if only because he's capable of successfully delegating the bulk of the work.

I would actually consider Sadeas to be very competent at interacting with people in general. He can be charming when he wants to, we know that. Most of the time he doesn't feel the need, but he is able to easily make Dalinar (and the reader) like him and trust him in WoK. The man has charisma. When it comes to his men being filthy and unpolished, that is mostly because he doesn't see the need for them to be clean and polished. And Odium taking over his men had little to do with Sadeas leadership. It is more the fact that they, and their highprinces (both Sadeas and Amaram) got antagonized by everyone. That opened them up to Odium. Had Dalinar been more forgiving towards Amaram (and had Amaram kept his soldiers from picking fights), the betrayal at Thaylen City might not have happened. 

Edited by Toaster Retribution
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