That would be a good example for a test that determines whether someone should be given a position as a military strategist or something, but these tests are to determine who gets to have absolute power. Presumably over international trade and economics, social justice, public services and infrastructure, legislation, the entire military... tests exist for all of these things and these potential leaders need to pass all of them?
That's why the process can be a bit dangerous when electing a new leader, as time goes on and people get more intelligent, the requirements for the tests will keep on rising. As more and more ideas are discovered, the tests will get longer and more complex to really weed out the leader the country needs. But yes, they do need to pass all the tests, but once more it depends on the country. This is why countries we have now for example would be so hard and long to complete as the requirement for knowledge only goes upwards. I can imagine like during the times of early civilization it would be easier, as there would be much less that needs to be known. One solution I think would be a country to have their leader only be tested on skills that is believed to be the highest importance, so that the leader can then appoint others that would do a better job than him in another area.
One of the largest problems, from my thoughts anyway, is that the people designing these tests can be overly critical or simply expecting too much to the point where they want perfection.
My issue is these test results are inherently open to interpretation, and I don't understand why the people qualified to write these tests and interpret the answers aren't simply put into the position of power themselves. You necessarily need to have intimate knowledge of the subject matter to be able to do those things and if knowledge is what makes a good candidate for leadership, why don't the test creators just run things themselves?
Well the thought train I had was that leaders are the ones that design the tests in the first place. Taking the example that the first leader that unites their people into one tribe creates a test that is to ensure the worthiness of the next person that wants to rule. What if there was a special rule where the next leader must create the next test that must be done to gain leadership. That way, you have the one before that the leader did, but new ideas that the leader believes would be important and so adds to it, raising the bar higher. But whether to not this needs to be approved by the experts or not depends.
Maybe if you had a council of leaders for each area of society, this idea would make more sense. Perhaps the person who excels in public speaking, charisma, management, etc. can be the figurehead/president/whatever. I can see a society running military-related trials and tests to determine a new commander in chief, but I can't see a society placing absolute power in the hands of one person who somehow excels at all of these incredibly broad and unrelated bodies of knowledge.
That's why experts exist, they can effectively be mini leaders in their own regard that are specialized in an area. They are especially useful to the leader since they have the knowledge he would require to effectively govern a area. But yeah I agree, a society that wants someone who excels at everything probably isn't going to have a leader in a very long time. So like I mentioned before, they have the leader specialize and then either appoint or let the experts take care of the missing spots.
