The Energon Pub

Had I been asked the question without ever having read this post I would have immediately said Optimus is a great leader, so thank you to everyone for their eye opening commentary.

Does Optimus embrace the ideals and qualities of a good leader? Yes, the younger he is (either by version specific age or series in order of appearance), yes, he definitely EMBRACES them. It seems he can't carry them all without dropping some from time to time.

I guess there are different types of leaders which embody different...degrees?...aspects?...of leadership.

Movieverse Optimus is perhaps a War Chieftain and a Crisis leader, but not a Knight analogue or an effective (by Earth business standards) ambassadorial head.I can't talk about Generalship yet, he hasn't had the chance to walk this walk for real so far.

G1 Optimus has a streak of Knighthood, but is defined as a Military leader, not General, Ground warfare commander-in-chief or whatever, so either the Cybertyronians don't bother with such ranks or nobody would accept to call him by that rank 'cuz he just didn't have it in him. Ultimately, G1 Optimus is a person attempting to carry all the ideals of the Pre-corruption era Autobots through to the post-apocalypse rebuild.Maybe he's a Demagogue?

You get the idea. I think he is a good leader, at least he has been in my view so far, not necessarily because I Idolozed Optimus and looked to him conciously but I have caught myself remembering the Optimus example on some occasions where I needed to sort events out.

My suggestion is that Optimus may have a different sociological pressure in regards to troop losses since his fighters are predominantly designated Warriors, not Soldiers, and as such have a different modus operandi:

-soldiers stave of death for as long as possible for tactical reasons.
-warriors accept the likelihood of death for ideological reasons.

whereas:

-A Commander, who by defenition will issue commands,is not required to lead, but to analyze.(He can still opt to also lead,tho).
-A Leader, who by defenition will lead, can do so from the front,back,low orbit,a holy text,a historical example (even a failed one!) and by TF standards, from within the Matrix.

When 'Bee gets caught,Prime has to lead Sam, Mikaela and each of the Autobots, including captured 'Bee, from different angles. In effect he's leading something greater: He's leading Cybertron, but from sleep to awakening.
Kinda-Sorta, Prime and Megzypoo are also trying to lead each other into their version of the light.