it is kind of sad though because even in the actual comics they don't really show dick as a great leader (thinking about ntt rn but there are others), they just dumb everyone else down. like there are so many different things you could pull on to make him the great leader he's supposed to be but they are rarely willing to put in the effort of thinking about why this guy is leading among so many people who are incredibly powerful and able to avoid a lot of the physical limitations he has
honestly like…. such a good point. i try really hard to write smart characters in my fic (even if they make silly choices) because it’s so crucial to how the bats operate and tbh dick should be on a whole other level of people managing. i think my fave examples of some of his leadership are from titans99 or outsiders2003 because they portray thee most interesting parts of how he communicates with others — the fact that he’ll make shitty choices that people disagree with and that the people he’s leading will disagree with him but still trust him anyway. that’s partially why i love the fab5 so much, cause when they’re written well they absolutely will call him out on his horseshit. but there’s still that absolute trust in his capabilities as a tactician.
like dick as a leader makes a lot of sense on paper — he has one of the longest tenures in the community, he housetrained the biggest bitch on the league, he’s rigorously moral, and he has broad emotional intelligence (even if he frequently uses it for evil). it makes sense that people, especially those with powers, would want to trust someone else to handle the logistics of working in a team with others with the same capacity for destruction. his specific skillset of thinking on his feet while calculating ten steps ahead makes him more popular than bruce and more outwardly confident than tim.
the downside to this tho is like u said — it relies on the other members of the group being written well. roy harper would not bend to dicks will just cause he said so. kory can and will kill against dicks orders. wally forces him into the leadership role to stop him from becoming like bruce. and if ur a writer who doesn’t give a shit he’s an easy character to just insist is smart and talented and trusted “just cause ❤️” rather than proving any of it in the text