voyager’s nightingale is a frustrating episode in how it neuters the natural progression of harry’s character arc (which, to be fair, neutering character arcs is thee voyager special, so what else is new) but it is interesting that what the episode says are the flaws in harry’s leadership skills are a lack of trust in his crew and his control freak tendencies because i think both of those actually make sense in context. in a general sense it makes sense for a starfleet officer, especially one inexperienced in command, to struggle to trust a non-starfleet crew, given that undercurrent of chauvinism starfleet’s got going on. more specifically it makes sense for harry to be a bit of a control freak because you know who else is a bit of a control freak? his dear mentor, one captain kathryn janeway
like, janeway gets bristly when people step outside of the boxes she’s placed them in. from her point of view, adherence to a strict starfleet command and social structure means less unknowns which means a higher chance of survival. of course harry’s going to have picked up on that in learning how to lead himself and struggle when placed in a leadership role outside of that structure. plus, there’s always going to be an inherent insecurity and lack of trust that comes with being outside of your element with people you barely know. combine all that with harry’s saviour complex and obviously he’s going to overcompensate by being a control freak. the fact that he does manage to overcome those hangups by the end of the episode despite the whole mission being a first leadership position on extra extra hard mode means he does show excellent leadership potential, even if the conclusion of the episode was solidly lukewarm about it
