Much of your first few sentences can be said about TO during and after his work in the AD. Fragile ego and poor management style especially. Giving an extension to Pelini after zero improvement and further childhood antics has given him a nice check after he was fired. Fragile ego, well TO hasn't exactly been outwardly supportive of Riley since Bo has been fired, at least to the extent he was to the lunatics Bo.
Secondly, there are multiple forms of being a leader. Simply not understanding one form doesn't meant it's ineffective. The BOR needs to focus on finding a Chancellor and let SE do his damn job. Seems like continually spite from a few reps that need to get over the BO saga.
You might be able to make that argument about TO, except when the wheels fell off during the BC era, it was TO who put things back together again. Was Tom a great AD? Maybe, Maybe not, but Tom is a pretty good natural leader and I don't think anyone disputed why he was brought back in to fix the mess created by Steve Pederson & Bill Callahan.
Secondly, I'm not going to get into the 'forms' of being a leader. That's a bunch of crapola right there. Leading is Leading, whether by example or by direction. True leaders are naturals at it.. And maybe that is where you disagree with me, but I don't believe it can be learned in a book or taught. You either have it, or you don't.
Finally, why do you think it has anything to do with the prior football coach? What has SE accomplished in the last two years? Has he been an effective leader? How are the different sports programs actually doing?