Heard talking to the secretary writing things down for slave driver (8)
I believe the answer is:
dictator
'slave driver' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'heard talking to the secretary writing things down' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'to' is found in the answer.
'writing' could be 'r' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'r' is present in the answer.
'down' could be 'd' and 'd' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dictator that I've seen before include "Eg, Stalin" , "Chaplin film showed a great one" , "One ordering" , "Arbitrary ruler" , "One who reads out for others to scribe" .)