So a relative of mine is a serial entrepreneur who self describes solving problems by basically just asking (nicely) for the same thing over and over again until she gets it. Personally I've been amused and frustrated by her inability to follow other people's line of thought or suggestions (or rules) even though she's as smart as anyone else so long as she's the one directing things. I've thought that she is a leader more or less because she can't be a follower and other people find it easiest to go along (if they want to work with her, which after her first success was increasingly likely).

So this robot fish, by not understanding or responding to the group has effectively made it necessary for the group to follow it as they instinctively all want to stick together.

Which makes me think the fish are naturally inclined to follow the most socially oblivious among them. But this only makes sense if the leaders are not really socially oblivious, but have only temporarily found a stronger motivation, which they communicate by overriding their normal group-school behavior, forcing the rest to follow their lead.