I genuinely don't understand some of the negative comments towards Leah on this thread.

She was in a no win situation last night and it appears people would have criticised her which ever option she took-

1) If she ignored the direct order from the Team leader Zee to tun back, and continued to use her own initiative and go to the mall, this would have been seen as insubordination and could have resulted in her being fired (I was amazed with Shuggsey commented on this in the Board Room and basically asked her why she didn't ignore Zee). It's hardly like she didn't put her case forward. She did, but was overruled.

2) By backing down (aka following her Team Leader's explicit instruction) and going to the souk, people berate her for not having a backbone and claim she should have stuck to her guns.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

It's hilarious how so many are trying to single out Leah, when everyone else hated him as well.

Even BOTH the men thought he was a useless idiot.

to accuse him of sexual harassment and then sue.

I like Leah, but I think the thing about going to the Mall, getting there and then turning back was wrong, I think she did it to waste time. If she was that convinced that the Mall was right, once there she should of gone in, what's the point of over ruling the PM then not following it on. I assume thats what LAS was going on about, not following your convictions, put your head on the block if you think you are right!

It's this kind of post that I was on about. No offence to you Mr Wales, (and everyone is of course entitled to their opinion) but here would be my replies to your comments-

1) She went to the mall to waste time-

A rather risky ploy just to 'point score' don't you think, especially when she would be in the firing line immediately for it. As for the turning back, Zee as PM ordered them to do it. He made it pretty clear. If she did NOT turn back then this would be clear insubordination

2) The point about over-ruling the PM and then not following through with it-

She tried to use her initiative and intuition as to what the best destination was but this was done when in the cars. When confronted directly by Zee she had to follow his request surely despite her protests.

Can you imagine the uproar if she had ignored Zee. This thread would go into meltdown with comments about the rude, insubbordinate, non team player Leah.

While I see your point, she was clearly told to go to the Souk while they were sitting around at the beginning. She then decided not to go there and head to the Mall, she was actually at the Mall when Zee rang, he told her to go the the Souk, so she did. I just don't see any point in heading to the Mall, then being told again to go somewhere else, then doing it. If your going to go out on a limb and ignore your PM, why not follow it through, all it did was end up wasting time. I think that was what LAS was annoyed about, if your convinced your right, follow it through and let the boardroom decided if you were.

Exactly, what she did was the worst of both worlds. If you are going to ignore clear instructions from your pm and drive to the mall then follow through with it. At the very least have a quick look about or use tourist info to find out/confirm what some of the items were.

But by going there and then turning back she not only defied her pm but also wasted time. I don’t think Neil deserves the full blame for getting the wrong item either, they were all there and he just did the negotiation. Zee had a point that Leah as sub pm should have noticed that item was wrong.

Ultimately Zee did deserve to go as he should have been the one to use his experience and go to the markets to try and get the best deals. Leave the sub team to get the flag, do research on odd things like where to get the falcon hood and confirm what an oud actually is.

Whilst I do think Zee is sexist some of his antagonism for the women in his team is justified. Natalie has been useless in every task so I don’t blame him for sidelining her, whilst Leah has been strong but was gunning for him from the start. Plus the utter failure of the female team in the 1st 3 tasks probably didn’t instil a lot of confidence.

So let me get this right. You think she should have openly defied the PM when he was directly telling her face to face (or rather phone to phone) that it was HIS decision and he was basically ordering them to do as he said.

How do you think open refusal/ defiance to a PM would go down in general? It's not such a push to imagine Shuggsey saying to her 'You're not a team player, even if you were right in wanting to overrule him we have PM's for a reason. You were not PM. I cannot work with someone who defies a directive like that. You're fired'

As I say- damned if you do and damned if you don't.

She'd already defied him though, and her choice may have proved correct and secured them the win. They might've trotted into the same perfumery the other team did, and found out what an oud is.

Ok, let me explain.

It's not a mature strategy to base your decisions on worrying about being "damned" by others. A responsible person will go with what makes sense to them based on logic/judgment/intuition/past experience etc.

Yes, Zeeshan was boorish and Leah was very good at pointing out his flaws but even this she exaggerated. It could just be in the edit but she appeared to take no responsibility whatsoever for anything that went wrong. There's something that doesn't sit quite right with me when one person gets blamed for the failure of a task carried out by a team of 6 supposedly intelligent adults.

Leah's conflict with Zeeshan blinded her from engaging meaningfully with anything he said, even the bit that was obvious common sense i.e. going to market to get the best price for tradtitional items rather than the shiny Western style mall.

If she had done her job properly and merely taken the time to check that they were buying the right type of kandura, the team would not have lost the task. Simples.

I still rate Leah but she showed a side to her character that would make me wary of her. She is obviously clever, talented and beautiful. However, on this task, she didn't seem interested in doing the job she insisted on appointing herself to.

Peace.

You don't need to explain. I understand perfectly the argument some of you on here are making, I just disagree.

This isn't directed at you indenile (good name BTW) but there seem to be an awful lot of double standards on this forum (This is not specific to the Apprentice forum I hasten to add!).

This is a TEAM game. I still cannot understand why individual candidates are singled out when there are others around them that should pipe up and be far more vocal if they happen to disagree.

Going off topic but one example from last night was Kurt and the inches and centimeters. Yes he was the moron who initially said it, but why should he get all the blame? Zee and Natalie went along with it and should be equally culpable for the flag debacle, yet for some reason it's just 1 person's fault? Really?

If a person stands there, and let's that happen, then more fool them. You cannot clam up and say nothing/ accept it and then later on blame the guy who got it wrong.

Step in! Take action! Tell them that it is incorrect! Do SOMETHING!

Equally, what about Neil and Alex in the car with Leah? Surely they should shoulder equal blame as I didn't hear either of them protesting to Leah too much about the trip to the mall, or indeed, when Leah eventually followed Zee's express orders to abandon that and go to the souk.

Peace to you too.

No, as I said before she had the worst of both worlds. You can’t be “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” if you both do and don’t.

Zee told Leah to go to the markets, she wanted to go to the mall but he overruled her. Had she followed his instructions then they would have had more time in the market and may have won. Leah could even have rung him half way through to day to re-iterate her desire to go to the mall.
Had they still lost she could have legitimately claimed that the loss was solely a result of Zee’s decisions as pm.

If she had stuck by her convictions and gone to the mall then that may have won the task too. But if they had lost then she would be in the firing line for disobeying him.

However what she chose to do was go to the mall and then turn back, wasting time. So she’d already shown she was not a team player and someone who defies directives. Once she’d done that Zee always had that as ammunition against her so she may as well have at least had a look in the mall.

So from a strategic point of view it was a very stupid move. If you are going to take a risk like that then do so for a reason. The mall trip achieved nothing.

At the end of the day yet again Zee wrote cheques his body couldn't cash. How come with all his knowledge of the area did he end up in the exact same shop as the other team, and actually paid more for his flag. If he didn't like Leah going to the mall he should of told her straight,"if we loose this task, your coming back in with me" for ignoring my wishes.

I admire Leah even more after last nite
not only is she smart and beautiful, she also has a strong personality and can spot a bullshitter immediately (unlike her teammates)

Absolutely AOTB. I do agree with you. I am not blaming Leah solely for the failure of the task. Potentially everyone in the team could have done something better which would have made the difference. However the winning team was more cohesive, which I think gave them an edge. Leah was undisputedly antagonistic in her team.
The focus on Leah is really about my disappointment in her because I've been rooting for her all along.

leah was annoyed about not being appointed PM. Simple as that. She strikes me as smart but a bit petulent.

You talk a lot of sense- I hear you and do agree by and large re her being antagonistic.
Judging by some of the posts on here I'd wager she would also have been criticised if she'd been as quiet as a mouse and just gone along with Zee's plan from the off.

People seem to jump on one individual thing, from task to task and heap the collective blame on that individual. Yes she was sub team leader but I haven't really seen many people question Alex and Neil's role in the whole situation, sat in the car with her on the sub team, that's all.

People can't have it both ways- to those that said she should have stuck to her guns and overruled Zee, the team leader, why didn't Neil and/ or Alex overrule her as the sub team leader on the way to the mall?

Right, I'll stop now. Roll on next week!

We don;t sound like that in real life, those three in particular elongate their words so it becomes so dour.

I've never understood the attitude that many of the candidates have when either
a) Things don't go their way (i.e. with a decision they wanted or being made PM)
or
b) They don't get on with a particular individual.

That is to say, the attitude of seemingly behaving like a stroppy teenager and chucking toys out of prams. That's what Leah appeared to do. She had a point (quite a strong one) that Zee was all mouth and no trousers but instead of getting her head down and either allowing him to crash and burn whilst sweetly following his directive or driving her sub-team through to save the task, she seemed to adopt a very negative stance from minute one and be more concerned with pointing out just why everything Zee did was a pile of pants.

I've always felt that if you really disagree with the PM's strategy and make your feelings clear then, when overruled just get your head down, follow directives and work your @rse off, you're in a win-win situation. Either your original hunch is correct, everything comes crashing down round the PM's ears and you can point out your strong opposition or you win and it's irrelevant anyway.

Yes I always think that, voice your opinion, get it noted so others can't turn around and say otherwise, then get on with it, you end up in a win-win situation.

Unfortunately Leah expressed her annoyance at not being PM then it seemed she tried to do everything against what was asked.

To be fair what she said was correct about Zee, he seemed to know jack all about the area, didn't speak, it appeared a word of the language, even though he says he lived there for 2 years and has done much business in the UAE. And didn't seem to recognise some of the products.

Kurt wasn't even present when they bought it. Neil did the negotiating.

I don't think they were really listening closely enough to Kurt to spot his mistake.

I agree completely with the Kurt thing here. People on here are being unfair - it wasn't just Kurt's fault. Natalie and Zee completely overlooked Kurt's mistake! They should share some of the blame.

And yes, Leah was not the only one, Alex and Neil were also there and equally as culpable. However, you cannot say that Leah was cooperative at all in this task. She was disappointed not to be PM - obviously cheesed off that no one accepted her - and at every possible moment, she would have a go at Zee or moan/grumble about something. You cannot say she was a team player at all in this task.

Leah reminds me of a much more intelligent Nadine Coyle. I think they both come from Derry - absolutely horrendous accents.

Rather than balanced and objective viewing of what happened within the team, the show's format relies upon and encourages scape-goating. Utter nonsense but much more fun