I have been one of the people lobbying for leaders to have more of a personality so they aren't just stat sticks you attach to a ship since before development began. If you think about it, in most 4X games, except perhaps for StarDrive 2 where some of them have personal ships and/or missions to complete, that's all a leader is. You pay X amount per turn for a set of bonuses you attach to a colony or fleet. They are essentially the same as a building you'd research except they buff (typically) multiple things. It works fine but it's very boring and lacks any amount of immersion. I must also state that I don't enjoy micromanagement in 4X games. I'm sure I'm on record saying that in a number of articles I've written. I'll be doing my best to push them towards being immersive, more realistic characters, while also avoiding excessive amounts of micro.
Joe3 try to look at this a bit differently. You do not own the leader, you hire him. You are paying him money for his service, he is your employee.As an employee he might want to quit his job if something is not to his likeness. I woulnd't worry that much about micromanagement, it is not like you will have 20 leaders and each turn you will have to fulfill someone's desires
Totalwar has being doing a good leaders system based on emergent traits and personality for some time. I'm not really a fan of the Moo2 leaders.Three static bonues and a picture was all you had. One thing missing here is the leaders or government for the actual state.There should be a king,president,etc at the start at least.I would go for the empire races cabinet mechanic you get in Total war Warhammer.,