If she leads, will they follow?

[7RED7]

Question 1) Why does the ranger want to lead? What does she hope to get out of it?

Question 2) If the paladin is the de-facto leader, is it by choice, or is it solely due to having the most experience where the newbies are hesitant to step up?

Question 3) Would it the paladin be opposed to a change of leadership? Is 'being the leader' where he's getting his jollies?

If the ranger has motives that are inline with how you run your game (e.g. she doesn't just want to be bossy), and the paladin isn't already attached to the whole leader thing, then here's my suggestion; Discuss the situation with the paladin player outside of game sometime, and if he's cool with it then ask him to have his paladin offer to mentor the ranger in the finer points of leadership (he sees a similar spark of greatness or somesuch). This could make everyone happy, but also puts the group into a position where they have a lot of routes they can take with it, with less chance of a lot of negativity associated with power struggles or feelings of someone arbitrarily put in charge over them. Set it up to happen naturally in a way that gets everyone involved and adds to the story. It may end up happening or it may not, but they are taking the journey and that's what counts.