Whenever a group or organization is formed, someone naturally has to take charge to set goals, establish rules, or provide immediate guidance in times of conflict. But then you have cases like these, where established leadership is nonexistent, and in the worst case is often highly debated (or even fought for) amongst the group... assuming anybody wants the role.
Most of the time in fiction, those who lead The Team are established from the get-go or are even promoted to leadership without debate, usually for the sake of moving the plot along. But in cases like these, the lack of consistent leadership can highlight how dysfunctional and unorganized a group can be. Can be Played for Drama in regards to the rocky relations between members, but can on the other hand be Played for Laughs to show the ridiculousness of the brazenly loose position, especially if the leadership in question is as high as royalty.
Merely being a group with no defined leader doesn't count for this trope, the fact that there's no straightforward leadership has to be highlighted or acknowledged in some way. Multiplayer games of the virtual and Tabletop variety also shouldn't automatically qualify for the trope, since they tend to not bother with questioning the lack of consistent leadership between players.
Compare and contrast Leader Wannabe, for individuals who aren't The Leader yet explicitly want/believe to be one (with them usually being part of a group with a defined leader), and Who Will Bell the Cat?, for group discordance in plans instead of leadership. See also Challenging the Chief, for an instance where leadership is truly settled.
In-Universe Examples Only and No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Fan Works
- With This Ring: On the way to Santa Prisca, Paul internally notes that Batman has told the team to choose a leader, but he assumes Aqualad is such an obvious choice that "We haven't even needed to discuss it." He then discovers that not only do the other team members not agree it's settled, but Robin is making a play for leadership, resulting in the mission going off track and "covert" being thrown out a window. When debriefing and discussing it later, Paul finds that Miss Martian thinks he does a decent job, except he insists he was only coordinating, not the same thing as leading, and the team does end up choosing Kaldur. (And this is vastly less messy than the canon leadership situation.)
Films — Animation
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: When Sweet Mayhem demands to see Apocalypseburg's fiercest leader, Batman claims it's him before the rest of Emmet's friends fight over who it should be. Emmet claims that after everyone became the Special, they should be considered leaders in their own right. However, Mayhem isn't convinced Emmet is the real leader, as her heads-up display tells her he's unqualified to be one, with Wyldstyle trying to jump to his defense.
Films — Live-Action
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian: Larry invokes this trope when he tells Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible, and Napolean Bonaparte that he'd give the magic tablet to whichever one of them is in charge. They end up arguing over it while denying that Kahmunrah is their leader. Larry had a feeling this would happen, and uses the distraction to try and get the tablet out of there.
- It's a Running Gag throughout Young Guns II that Billy the Kid and "Arkansas" Dave are both trying to claim leadership over the gang and each tells anyone they meet that they're the leader. That is, until the group is caught in a lethal ambush by Sheriff Pat Garrett and his posse, and each tries to pass leadership off to the other. Eventually, when they're under fire during the ambush, their attempts to ditch being the leader escalate to the point that when Dave claims that Billy is and always has been the leader, Billy draws a gun and points it at Dave, saying "Don't cross me, Dave." The more experienced members of the gang are either apathetic to the whole thing or grudgingly (at best) accept Billy's leadership because they wrongly believe Billy knows a secret path that will let them escape the law in their Run for the Border, while less than experienced wannabe outlaws default to Billy because he's the most famous. (Also, Dave being a Jerkass doesn't make anyone want to follow him if they can help it.)
Literature
- Small Gods: Near the end, an alliance of several normally mutually hostile nations gathers their fleets for a combined attack on Omnia, but nobody seems to know who's in charge of the situation. The Ephebian admiral thinks he is since he's avenging the attack on Ephebe; the Tsortean admiral thinks he is because he has the most ships; the Djelibeybian admiral thinks he is because he always assumes he's in charge of everything. In fact, there's only one captain who doesn't think he is, and that's because he's captain of a one-man fishing boat from a tribe that had never had any contact with the outside world until he ran into the fleet and got swept up with them.
Live-Action TV
- Dempsey and Makepeace: Overall downplayed as their functioning partners (and otherwise the hierarchy of S.I. 10 is well established with Spikings), but a recurring joke is Dempsey and Makepeace often argue over which one of them holds seniority. Dempsey is convinced that it is him as he is technically of the higher rank, being a lieutenant within the NYPD, whilst Makepeace is a sergeant in the Metropolitan London police. Makepeace meanwhile considers the fact they both are working for the Met (as well as the fact the Met doesn’t have the rank of lieutenant) means that is her.
- Odd Squad: Mobile Unit: The episode "Odd Squad in the Shadows" revolves around the Mobile Unit being unable to determine who the leader of the group is after North Carolina Ms. O asks who the leader is. What follows is each member taking turns being the leader and attempting to fix things in time for the North Carolina precinct's golf tournament. Eventually, Mr. Sides tells the group that no one is the leader and they're all equal in rank. This is all despite the fact that Opal is, in fact, the de facto leader of the Mobile Unit, as she was the one to round the main cast up and is shown taking charge more often than anyone else.
- Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger: After the Five-Kingdom Alliance (later Six-Kingdom Alliance) formally forms the Ohsama Sentai, they propose on at least two occasions to select a leader from between themselves. However, between the significant egos each of the monarchs possess as well as their respective domains being very distinct from each other, they can never quite achieve a consensus on who leads the team. Near the end of the series, they ultimately decide to work together as an alliance of equals rather than having a clear, individual leader. (Super Sentai tradition would indicate Gira, the Red Ranger of the team, would be best suited for the job, however given how the other monarchs feel free to push him around it would be a moot point.)
- In Power Rangers Beast Morphers episode "Evox's Revenge", the recently-formed Beast Morphers team attempt to set up a leader, with Ravi (the Sole Survivor of the original team) and Zoey (a failed candidate for the team who ended up getting powers thanks to events) fighting to be the leader of the group. Ultimately, it's Devon (the Rookie Red Ranger who actually snuck into Grid Battleforce at the beginning) who becomes the leader after he calls them out for letting their feud get the better of them. Ironically, a leader had been chosen beforehand, but we never find out who it was.
- Yellowjackets: The Yellowjackets have this problem from the minute they crash-land in the Canadian wilderness. The lone surviving adult, Coach Ben, tries his best but he's missing a leg and whatever authority he had is stripped away by having to rely on Misty. He falls into Sanity Slippage after Laura Lee overrules his authority in her escape mission and gets blown up.
- Season 1: Jackie, the team's captain is used to being The Leader but instantly crumbles under the trauma of the plane crash and being stranded. Upon finding out that Shauna is pregnant by Jackie's boyfriend Jeff, Jackie attempts to pull her authority on Shauna but Shauna, who has gained authority, fights back. All of the Yellowjackets either turn on Jackie or abandon her, leaving her to be frozen to death in the first snowfall. Lottie becomes the de facto leader of a section of the team who comes to believe that she has mystical abilities, which puts her at odds with natural leader Taissa, especially since Taissa's girlfriend Van becomes one of Lottie's true believers.
- Season 2: Lottie is revealed to be deeply uncertain about her "powers" and pushed into them by the increasingly desperate group, unwilling to take on any more serious role as The Leader. Natalie, meanwhile, has turned against Lottie, annoyed that her role as hunter is not appreciated or grants her any authority, which alienates her more from the rest of the group. Due to starvation, Taissa is unable to take on any meaningful leadership role. Shauna craves more leadership and is deeply traumatized from her stillbirth. These factors coincide in Shauna nearly killing Lottie, taking her out of commission. Lottie resigns herself to her death, seeming almost relieved...only for the rest of the group to decide that Lottie can't die. Instead, they decide to use a hunt to find a Human Sacrifice to take Lottie's place.
- After this, the Antler Queen is revealed to work like this. Lottie is the first and has a leadership role because of it. After having her life narrowly saved by the hunt, she resigns her position and chooses Natalie instead on the basis that she survived the card draw and the hunt. Although this happens in the Season 2 finale, there are already strong hints that not all of the group appreciates Lottie stepping down from leadership. Shauna, for example, is shown ranting in her diary about how she should be queen.
Toys
- Transformers: In the original toyline, each combiner team has a clear leader with a higher rank than their subordinates, typically having a rank of 7 while their subordinates have ranks of 5 or 6. The most well-known examples are Onslaught of the Combaticons, Silverbolt of the Aerialbots, and Motormaster of the Stunticons. However, the first-ever combining team the Constructicons are unusual in that all the members have the same rank of 5 and none of their bios or functions explicitly identify any of them being the team leader (unlike how Onslaught's function is "Combaticon leader"). This has led to different members being team leader in different fiction (e.g. in The Transformers Scrapper was leader, in the future stories of The Transformers (Marvel) Mad Scientist Mixmaster led the team, in the Fun Publications comics Hook was the team leader).
Video Games
- Brave Fencer Musashi: Leader's Force is called that because each member thinks he or she is the leader, each of them opening their introduction with some form of "So you have gotten this far! But now you face me, the leader of Leader's Force!"
- Deltarune: The miniboss trio Sweet Cap'n Cakes are a bit confused with regards to which one of them is in charge. Sweet has no idea who the leader is, Cap'n thinks he is the leader and K_K is second in command, and K_K wonders if he can be third.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: When the title organization is reformed at the start of the game, the leadership question is left open for the entirety of Act I, because its agents have failed to locate both individuals (the Warden and Hawke) originally earmarked by the late Divine Justinia to lead them. The responsibility thus falls back to an impromptu council of about half a dozen of old Chantry guard who delegate field command to the new Player Character. This changes only in Act II when the aforementioned old guard unanimously promotes the PC to the supreme leader position in recognition of their earlier successes.
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the "Companions" of Jorrvaskr don't have a designated leader. They have a "Harbinger", who is the most respected of the group, and a "Circle" of senior members who can all give orders and assign missions, but they're all emphatic that the group doesn't have any one leader.
- Flower Knight Girl features the group known as "Berries", an informal expedition team formed from multiple berry-type Flower Knights, who each aspire to help the Player Character in any way possible. As an illustration of the team being less professional and organized than prior groups, which is even reflected in the group name being "Berries" and not one specific membernote , all of them have claimed the title of leader at least once for their own reasons, with most of them being confused if questioned about this — even Gumi, the founder and thus the de-facto candidate for the role, wonders if everybody else thinks differently..
- Mass Effect:
- Happens on a state level in the Asari Republics. Whereas most other species have some kind of centralized government or representative (not counting Citadel Councilors), the asari have an e-democracy where laws are determined through public forum without elected representatives. The closest they have to such individuals are the matriarchs, who generally gather followings who heed their counsel, but even they are more honored advisors who (in theory) have no more say in lawmaking than any other Asari citizen. Mass Effect 3 deconstructs this when the Reapers invade and the Asari find themselves unable to mount a successful defense due to not having a clear command structure. In contrast, the Turians, who have a top-down authoritarian government with clear lines of succession, manage to hold the Reapers back for weeks, while the Asari homeworld is lost in a matter of hours.
- The Council itself is also an example as each of the member races are co-equals (again, in theory) who cannot take any actions without the approval of the other council races. Here too, Mass Effect 3 has them disorganized and more preoccupied with looking after their own species' interests than working together to mount a proper defense. Shepard decides to ignore them and appeal to the individual governments directly.
- Rayman 2: The Great Escape introduces the Teensies, and they have a king of their species as indicated by the crown... except none of them can decide which of them is the king, so they regularly take/pass around the crown from/to the other Teensies.
Web Videos
- Ryan George: One of their sketches is about an "Imposter Syndrome Support Group". Naturally, no one in the group feels they are qualified to lead it, let alone join the group in the first place.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Downplayed. The Gaang has no formal leadership, which is acknowledged early on in "Jet" when Sokka fails to assert himself as the leader, and later in "The Western Air Temple" when Aang clarifies that he doesn't get to speak for the group. Regardless, the team makes all their decisions through consensus and unanimous vote when necessary, generally serving themselves well without leadership.
- Beast Wars: Whenever Optimus Primal is captured or incapacitated, the Maximals get into a fight over who takes charge, with Dinobot usually being the one to demand he be made leader. They even tried voting who'd be in charge one time, and ended up in a tie! Luckily, Rhinox would put an end to this little charade and use a little brute force to put Dinobot in his place.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Storm Over Ryloth", the droids take command of a Separatist fleet after the Neimodian captain flees the battlefield. However, because of their limited programming, they get confused and can't decide who among them is supposed to be in charge now.
