1. Raef
2. Lucinder
3. Sarah
4. Claire
5. Simon
6. Helene
7. Alex
8. Jenny
9. Ian

Lucinda
Alex
Sara
Claire
Simon
Ian
Jenny
Helene
Raef


I know I've got some losing team leaders at the top and a winning team leader at the bottom but that's because I think Lucinda and Alex's team's defeats were in spite of their efforts and Raef's team's victory was in spite of his lack of effort, unless you consider hailing taxis and ordering drinks an effort.

Claire - won twice, neither time through luck.
Sara - built consensus, didn't lose her head when they had to cancel lunch. Claire's moaning made her look worse than she was. Winner.
Raef - didn't seem to do much but avoided mistakes made by others, and won.
Lucinda - mostly OK but too weak; lost because she didn't drive her team to excel.
Helene - allocated roles poorly, and didn't reallocate them. Won, though.
Simon - tried to micro-manage, then got too involved in photography and didn't manage at all.
Alex - divisive, all about placing blame, often for his own mistakes.
Jenny - rubbish ideas, and mistreated Lucinda.
Ian - headless chicken. Didn't listen to good advice from Simon.

If the candidates were animals my favourites would be:

1. Lucinda: cool cat
2. Raef: siamese cat
3. Sara: kitten
4. Simon: lion
5. Claire: pit bull terrier
6. Helene: honey badger *
7. Alex: too easy
8. Ian: can't say and wont say
9. Jenny: snake

* Honey badgers don't kill you; they eat your testicles.

Sorry, folks, but people are voting based on their own perception, rather than performance.

Lucinda was unlucky, but fail she did and so can't be listed top.

Raef did best. It's a no-brainer.

But peoples perception as to who did the best job will vary from person to person.

I think most people are voting on the team leaders' actual performance rather than the eventual outcome.

Lucinda lost through no fault of her own.

Raef won through the sheer effort of three of his team members. In my opinion, he was the worst performing team leader for that reason alone.

Surely Claire did best because she had two wins, and Raef only has one.

But I disagree with your principle. We're supposed to be rating them on skill, not results. As it happens, Helene is the only winning leader I put below losing leaders, but she definitely deserves to be that low. Her's was a lucky win; much luckier than Claire's. She only made a few hundred pounds; she won because Simon's team failed spectacularly and didn't even make a profit. Against even a mediocre team she'd have lost.

(I think discussions of merit are more interesting than plain lists, by the way.)

As I said somewhere else I do think that Raef did not win only because of the sheer effort of his team. The evidence is that the same team lost twice under the leadership of Ian and Alex. I think I have seen enough to say that his leadership style is very effective (Sorry for those who read this before!!!):

1- At the beginning of the laundry task, Raef asked who is good at what and therefore delegated the roles very effectively. Simon took the admin role, Alex and Lee were in face to face sales, Kevin (as a banker) was the negotiator, Michael was responsible for the pricing and finding what is necessary to get the job done (the plastic bags, the temperature of the washing, etc.)
2- Raef used the rift that has been created in the first task to his advantage and split the team accordingly and that is why they worked very well together.
3- Raef was decisive on the issue of sharing the irons with the girls without wasting too much time discussing the morality of the whole thing.
4- Raef left every one to get on with his role without much interference. That gave every one in the team the impression that he has an important role in the task and that is why they all gave their best.
5- When Kevin negotiated the Hotel deal, Raef did not interrupt him and avoided looking unprofessional. You can see that Raef was surprised when Kevin did not negotiate for more that 200 pounds but he did not play the blame game (as Alex did in the previous task). He quietly took the order and quickly realised that (unlike Jenny the other PM) that the rest of his team has to start working on it and ordered them to stop selling and go back immediately.
6- Realising that the negotiation skills of Kevin are not that great, he took initiative in negotiating the second order. He was decisive not to take the order as the price was very low.
7- Had Raef returned to the laundry to help the others, they would have definitely lost the task. Instead he looked for more business and that won them the task.
8- Throughout the whole task Raef kept his cool.

All the team gave their best and Simon did an excellent job. But I think that Raef being a PM was vital in the win. They had their coffee or whatever in the car on their way back. so they didn't waste very much time IMO.

I don't doubt Raef's leadership skills. He is a natural leader. However, I doubt that he has the business experience that Alex, Claire and Helene have. That is why I can't see him winning the apprentice.

I didn't see the whole of the laundry episode, so my views based on what I did see might be a bit skewed.

1. Raef - successfully organised and deployed a team which could easily have fallen apart.
2. Sara - good enough ideas with no really bad mistakes in execution, and coped with Clare, but took too long to get organised, hence 'losing her lunch'.
3. Lucinda - Simple, inclusive style and she was a little unlucky to lose. However she was a bit too hands-off. Why didn't she know exactly what the other sales team were doing and keep it under evaluation deal by deal? And was Lindi the best deputy anyway?
4. Claire - Muddled through the first task adequately against weak competition. Never had the second task under control though and was lucky to win.
5. Simon - Did his best to manage a team with 2 members who had no interest in following him, but it's not really surprising his hectoring style annoyed people and he lost control.
6. Helene - Granted she couldn't have predicted how bad Lucinda would be in her role but, given how crucial it was, she should have picked the most computer literate person for it not someone picked at random or as an after-thought, never mind someone who tells you it's not their strong point. Even if you think (as some obviously did) that Lucinda doesn't/didn't have strong points.
7. Alex - Delegated badly (too much per person) such that mistakes were likely and then caused the worst mistake, concerning lobster, himself before chewing Nicholas over for it ready for the boardroom.
8. Ian - Just clueless
9. Jenny C - Clueless and nasty

Actually, they've been pretty rubbish so far - and Michael hasn't even had his go yet .

I agree all pretty mundane so far ... Lee, Kevin, Jenny Mc havent led a team either! None of them are exciting to watch or have charisma. At least other series had go getters that didnt need to be constantly aggressive, bitchy, back stabbing to name a few attributes to this years candidates.

Semi-competent

Raef
Sara
Jenny Celeriac
Alex

Absolutely Incompetent

Claire
Lucinda
Helene

Absolutely Clueless

Ian
Simon

With Claire being the most objectionable team leader because it allowed her to indulge her self-obsession, status-obsession, selfishness and numerous other revolting character traits.

I'm sorry -- this doesn't work. You have to judge people on results, not whether you like the look of them, or not.

Regardless of who "deserves" what, best managers don't lose. This country is too full of those that do.

Dave

They're being judged on their performance as a leader, not on the performance of the team as a whole.

In many people's eyes, the victory of Raef's team had little (if anything) to do with Raef.

I can see what you're saying - that a good leader gets results. But in this instance there were many people making decisions, working hard and making an effort; Raef wasn't one of them.

You're using logic that doesn't make sense.

We'll have to agree to differ

Kevin tonight was by far the worst of the series.

..I'd say Michael was only marginally ahead of him!