The Leader

People ask if I was in charge.  After that first meeting with Jacob, it was a long time before more people came (or were brought) to the Island, perhaps 7 years or more.  I had made my own camp, but still spent time walking and talking with Jacob at the beach.  It was lonely, but after a while you can learn not to feel alone.
When the next group of people came, and some chose to help, I was their Leader.  I stayed as Leader for a long time.  However, Jacob became concerned that our people were being too influenced by me, a man who did not age, who knew all the Island, who spoke of mystical things.  We talked about this, and that he felt the people might start to worship me!  Not that Jacob was worried for his own vanity.  Jacob was worried that my Leadership may be influencing the natural outcome too much.  He did not want a "false-positive" - he needed a true outcome.  So we agreed to a selection of Leader amongst the people.
There were still times when I had to take over.  In the 1930's, our group declined to a small number, where none could be Leader.  But we had relative peace, so it became me again.  But things began to heat up years later as the US Army found the Island by chance, and looked to conduct atom bomb testing.  We had an influx of some young blood from British hospital ship a few years before, but none were mature enough yet.  Young Charles Widmore was in that group, and we would bump heads quite often on our operations.  I tried to resolve the issue with the Army peacefully, but when they wouldn't leave, it was Widmore's aggression that led the option to kill them all.  He was also behind the move to appropriate all the Army's equipment and clothes.  He was very angry when Locke walked into our camp, but I had to shut him down.  I was still Leader and he had to respect that.
Later, as our group grew and matured, I knew of the relationship between Eloise and Charles.  He was very put out when Eloise was chosen as Leader.  As events would prove, she was more hard-nosed than he ever was.
When she left to have her baby, Charles took her place.  Then there was Ben and of course, John Locke.  And there were Leaders before them; Pietro, Simon and Elijah.  Each Leader would impact the direction of the group's activities, and I had to be as a guide and liaison to Jacob, but to let them run things their own way.  Eloise was considered and business-like, Charles was emotional and reactive, Ben was cunning and determined, and John, well I feel he would have brought some balance back, but strange events brought his time to a quick end, as I suppose they were always meant to.