Yeah I get that, I've been going on a completionist bond completing bonds between allies and with ally individually (mostly for the bonus stats/items but also for the lore). What I mean by inconsistency is the tracking of the bond levels which is mostly inaccurate and may be chapter dependent (bond levels with each other are independent with amount of bond events viewed). Each character has 3 bond events with another person, but like my example above the bond level stat is inaccurate since character A bond may be different from character B. Like A has bond lvl 5 with B, but B's stat page it displays bond level of 1 with A. It also seems dependent on chapter (the bond levels, but the bond events can easily be viewed/maxed once the character is unlocked). Example is Goro and Luluka, at prologue a person can max their bond events (3 max) but their stat page bond level will remain at 1 with one another. Progressing through the chapters will increase it to showcase that they are becoming more friendly as the chapters continue. So yeah, with that in mind the inconsistency I've been spouting about can be explained by how they perceive one another like person A views B as a Friend but B does not feel the same way. In conclusion Bond levels are not the same as bond events. Bond levels are just fluff number stats that are dependent on chapter (exception to this rule is "bond with you" that each character has, that is dependent on how long you've commanded them in battle (does not need to be team leader, just active battle party member) and bond with you maxes out at 9 in which a person can view all bond events of that character in relation to the protagonist. Gray has total 8 Bond events. Some characters are exception to this rule). And no, there are no bond events/ triggers that requires them to be in leader position. Hope this clears some questions regarding bonds.