7. Not Dealing With Shane Earlier
The main problem over the tail end of season one and two was Shane, and the guy went to great lengths to make that apparent. He nearly raped Lori, almost publicly killed Rick a good amount of times, threatened Dale, staged a barn-shooting and murdered Randall in the woods. The man oozed corrupted evil, and made this painfully obvious with his shaved-head look. But what was Rick's response to all this? A combination of eye-rolling and half-hearted bollockings, that's what. The fact of the matter is that Shane had a point when he called Rick weak he wasn't able to keep his group safe, and aside from capping Sophia dithered on all the hard decisions he had to make. Admittedly, as the other guns-blazing extreme, Shane wouldn't have been a better option, but just because truth occasionally comes out of the mouth of crazies, it doesn't make it any less truthful. Yet Shane touched on an ironic point Rick was too weak to deal with problems, and the biggest problem of all was Shane himself. If he'd just banished the guy early on, he'd have probably been a much more effective leader, if only because he didn't have the other alpha male in the group constantly nipping at his heels and almost leaving him for dead on a bus. It was painfully obvious to everyone barring possibly Andrea that Shane was a lost cause, but still, Rick didn't smother that fire until it was far, far too late.