ASOIAF: What can we learn about leadership from Jon Snow's example?

I think that a lot of people — myself included, at times — focus on mistakes of Jon Snow, but we really need to understand that, like Daenerys, he really is in an impossible situation.

Let’s look at that situation:

• He’s understaffed — big time. He’s got three hundred miles of Wall to defend and less than a thousand men; most of whom are, like, turnip farmers, lumberjacks or male hookers. Only a third of them at most are rangers; the great majority of them can’t read and area bunch ofmeth-head rapists who kill their leaders and run for the hills at the drop of a hat.
• He is in a political Catch 22 vis-a-vis the struggle for the Iron Throne.
  
  He has to staff a bunch of abandoned castles or else give them to Stannis. If he doesn’t give into Stannis, Stannis will do what he wants by force; if he helps Stannis he pisses of the Iron Throne. Either way, he overtly breaks his oath to take no sides.
  
  Yes, he covertly supports Stannis. But just blithely handing over the castles to Stannis’ knights is a no-go and clearly not the right decision for the Watch.
• He has got a half dozen friends and subordinates who are competent and trustworthy.People say he shouldn’t have sent the likes of Dolorous Edd, Pyp and Grenn away, but that ignores the reality of his short-handedness. Who is going to command those castles? The retard from Mole’s Town? The sissy-boy from the brothel. RAndom gang rapist #32?
• He has got an army of Wildlings at the gates, who will be turned into an army of zombies if he doesn’t let them through the gates.

So, let’s look at some of his other choices, mistaken or otherwise..

• He antagonizes the Karstarks (and by extension the WArden of the North, Roose Bolton) by marrying Alys Karstark to the Magnar of Thenn. Yes, Alys Karstark is the rightful ruler of the Karstarks. But the Night’s Watch pays no part. In the end, it is fuel for the Boltons’ fire and legal justification for Ramsay’s proposed attack. I would argue that this was a mistake; an emotional decision to stick his nose in Northern politics borne from Jon’s hero complex and a desire to stick it to the Bolton-supporting Karstarks, who betrayed the Stark cause.
• He takes a hefty loan from the Iron Bank. While this will doubtless keep the Wall, which now has a gaggle of Wildlings to feed, fed throughout the long Winter. I am not sure if it is a mistake but it is certainly a massive gamble seeing as how the present administration has rather meagre incomes considering the underpopulated Gifts. Again what else is he going to do? Though.
• He lets the Wildlings in, using them to staff the castles of the Wall. It is the humane decision and I think the right one, unpopular though it is.
• He undertakes to send a force North to Hardhome, even though the innocents there are PLAINLY doomed. This is after, most likely, throwing away most of Eastwatch-by-the-Seas rather meagre fleet at that problem already. His hero complex at work, again, mainly; though he rationalizes it by telling himself he is reducing the future army of the dead.

Alright.

So the big criticism that most of us level on Jon Snow is that he doesn’t communicate to his senior officers the rationale behind his plan.

I’m not sure if that really holds up to examination.

It’s true that he doesn’t sway them from their opinion, which is based on fear of the Wildlings, fear of the Iron Throne and fear of the Others(in that order.) But I think he does communicate his reasons. At some point he gives up and he certainly does not really take their objections as seriously as he should. But he does present his argument to them. So what should he have done?

Ultimately, I think that the failed Lord Commandership of Jon Snow ultimately offers these lessons:

1. A leader needs to listen to his most senior officers and perhaps modify his plans somewhat to accommodate him. 
   He must compromise.
   Not only with Stannis but with your own men. No matter how wrong you think they are. Especially when your men have a tendency to kill leaders when they don’t agree with their decisions.
2. A leader needs to be realistic. It is one thing to help some starving Wildlings at the gate. It is another to send not one but TWO suicide missions to a far land to save them. No matter how much you want to be a hero, you need to preserve your meagre army and learn to say know to the victims of the world.
3. A leader must mind his own affairs and keep the personal from affecting his decisions. There was really nothing that the marriage of Alys Karstark accomplished except a rather dubious alliance between the Karstarks and the Thenns. It’s another gamble on Stannis, ultimately that could backfire and spell his doom.

Written Oct 1