What is a good leader?

[My 2 sids]

In responce to the "how to improve clans" and in general all the talk of "Good Leadership", let's define it.  

Good Staff – I'm not just talking about staff who can dream up huge RTPs and such.  I'm talking about staff that takes time out to email clan members with feedback (not just negative by the way).  I'm talking about staff that takes time out to log in as some NPCs just to interact with clanned people.  I'm talking about staff who, from an OOC view point, value players and player ideas; regardless of rank or reputation ICly.

Good Promotional Paths – Promotion shouldn't just happen because a PC has been in the house for X number of days.  Clans and houses should make everyone aware of the steps needed for promotion.  Not only does this keep even the pot scrubbers from dreaming of making it to Advisor, it gives them actual steps to do so.  Leaders should, from time to time, give feedback to all PCs, "Hey, I saw you stop a fight in the mess hall the other day, good communication skills!"  Experience (IC experience) should factor in when being hired.  "I heard you've slain over fifty spiders, extra fifty sid in your pay!" "You're coming to us from the Byn/merchant house/Academy/etc  you'll be hired in at a hirer starting rank."

Realistic Expectations – Not everyone is going to get along, not everyone is going to like their ranking officer or even nobles.  As long as it doesn't show enough to tarnish clan image, who cares?  Trust your NPCs or show favoritism to one or two in your command, expect the gossip and repercussions to fly.  Want productive workers?  Give them enough time and opportunity to relax and have families.

Good Followers – This one I think is often over looked.  Leaders need people to lead!  I'm not just talking about "yes men"  I'm saying offering the leader something to work off!  An employee who never shares any expression of what they are thinking or doing isn't giving the leader a chance to respond.  An employee who retires or runs after a "new" leader comes on the seen isn't allowing that new leader PC a chance to lead.

A Common Goal – No matter what, houses and clans should have a common IC and OOC goals.  IC goals should involve as many as possible, OOC goals should involve EVERYONE.  Leaders have to go beyond just starting goals, they need to have an exit plan (yes, there is a political joke in here :twisted:)  After an OOC month, plotlines should be updated or tossed or placed on the back burner.

[Agent_137]

There's massive amounts of research and information on this, and there is still no "perfect" way to do it. (IRL)

It's not difficult to shift this information into armageddon as long as you see the two different aspects of leadership here:

IC: You don't have to be, the best leader possible. It's unrealistic to be the perfect leader with now flaws, and not fun, either.

OOC: You should strive to be the best leader possible. You're dealing with real people, and your objective is that they have fun along with you.

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With that, I want to sit back and watch this thread, because I'm very interested in the upcoming answers.

[Krath]

To Answer this question, Please Read This Thread, Mainly LOD's post. VERY Helpful.

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1745&start=0

Here is the Post. THESE ARE LOD's words not mine:

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Leading a clan is rough work.

Established or brand new, it requires hours of time both online and offline making sure that everyone is taken care of, including the Imms. You have to be available for your players, provide and update documentation, keep plots moving, people entertained and all this while trying to have a good time.

I have been involved in a quite a few clans in my time and, contrary to AC's comments regarding an inabiliy to shape the world via pre-established clan characters, it is possible to make an impact upon the world with EITHER route.

The key to being a successful clan leader is forming a realistic and workable plan, setting it into motion and following through no matter how long it may take and how many obstacles are thrown in your way. The Imms aren't just going to read your email on 'Clan ChewyChomp's Desert Fortress of Power' and get to work creating it after you log and mail in a few hours of RP.

The Imms want the rewards to come as a result of hard work and a few risks along the way. They'll throw in a few bumps to see how well you handle the problems and give you a chance to make a good story. Some players see these blocks as "getting screwed" simply because they were hoping they'd rise to the height of power within a House/Clan simply by sitting in taverns for years on end - which does happen.

As a pro-active player, however, I have made several attempts to change and alter the world with my clans and the clans of the game.

Ironswords. The Ironswords are a documented dwarven clan that beseiged the city-state of Allanak for a game YEAR after freeing the southern slaves of the obsidian mines. Led by Thrain Ironsword, yours truly. It didn't just happen though. I didn't wake up and decide to do it.

Wish all Hey, going to attack Allanak tonight - load up about 100 dwarven NPC's if you could, thanks. I'll let you know when to attack.

That's not how it works. I built contacts, worked out relationships with clans, built my army and trained them. Worked hard to develop my character and my concept - gained support politically and physically. Then, when everything came to a head - we attacked.

It doesn't always work. Your PC can die smack dab in the middle and it all fizzles and dies.

I have also had success bringing life to a pre-existing clan, House Salarr, which (at the time) had a non-existant playerbase. I started a PC when he was 17 years old (Khann D'arden) and joined Salarr as a beginning merchant.

He ended up retiring at 55, head of almost all operations and probably being one of the largest world-players there's been because of it. Estates were built, plots were set in motion, clans were made to support the play a simple plan put into motion. It just takes dedication and hard work.

To give another, more recent, example - there has been an addition in the game (as noted in the Updates) that a northern branch of the T'zai-Byn has opened. This didn't simply come about because the Imms figured it was 'about time' or that it was a good idea.

Taking a leadership role, I made a plan that I thought made IC sense, was realistic and would be a fair challenge. Over the course of about 10 RL months, I made contacts, RP'd, handled political and physical challenges and finally, through many hours, days and months of hard work and planning, saw my goal achieved.

Would there have been a northern compound if I hadn't pushed forward with the idea and tried my best to make it happen, possibly. But this is exactly the 'kind' of result you can achieve in a pre-existing clan to make your mark and be remembered when all is said and done.

There is room to stretch in both categories, new and old. You can make your mark on the MUD in both catgeories and it follows the same path. Hard work, planning, goal setting and a little bit of luck.

More than my two cents, but hey - I've got a whole pocket full of change.

-LoD




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I'll say it again, leading is rough work.

I figured some PC leaders (and their followers) could use some insight into just what goes on in the role of a leader. Now I am simply speaking from experience and certainly not implying that my way is the 'right way' or the 'best way' by any means, but it has worked for me.

It starts when you log on, every day.

From the moment you log on, You feel a foreign presence contact your mind. Someone always needs something: a few moments of your time, a decision about a job, a question about House policies, informing you one of your men is in jail, wanting to quit the House, wanting to get paid, asking to join up with the House.

And that's in the first 10 minutes. If you collect all of these requests and add them together, you've just committed yourself (if you're lucky) to about 30 mins - 1 hour of simply handling other people's tasks. This goes on all day long, so be ready for it. There's no way around it, that is your job as the leader of the clan - a slave to your people.

I know that many people think that all you do is sit around in taverns, yucking it up with clients or nobles or smoking spice in a back den somewhere, but it's all part and partial to the leading gig. People have no idea how much work it involves micro-managing a clan of players whom all want to have fun and need -you- to provide it for them. While most leaders don't mind, the general populace should be aware at how time consuming dealing with it can be.

Keeping your followers active.

One of the main things you must do to have a happy clan is keep them active. Now, this doesn't mean you have to have an RPT every single day and create large-scale plots and events. It just means that your people need to have a sense of direction and purpose. They can only stand guard at a gate or by your side for so many hours without losing their minds and wondering what the hell they are doing when their friends are telling them on ICQ how they just escaped a horde of gith and found a cool ass cave in the desert.

Keep your men busy. Use anything that you can to give them purpose and even make up small jobs that really don't mean anything. If there are 3-5 of them around, have them go outside and do something, anything. They don't need to know why it's important, you're the boss. Tell them that we need five gith skulls. That ought to keep them busy. Have them run to Red Storm and pick up a few jugs of spiced ale for a future meeting or to head north to Luir's to see what's going on of late and continue developing relations with their people.

It does seem like a lot, but it's why players play the game. They want to build a story and have a good time. Help them reach that goal. They may die, yes, but if you are a high-level leader in your clan, I highly doubt that you're going anywhere soon and fresh meat pop up all the time in their stock leggings, pack and torch waiting for work.

Reward your followers with praise and coin.

If you want to be a clan leader for long, you'd better learn how to keep players happy. That is one of the single most important things about being a leader - knowing what players want and giving them enough to stay with you.

The best system I came up with is to reward them whenever you see them and they complete a task, in addition to a monthly wage. You may have the set the wage low if you have a lot of employees, but the fact that they will receive money in their pocket that DAY instead of waiting for some kind of monthly salary will have them logging in much more frequently for a chance at some coin.

If your guards are with you when you travel somewhere to make a little 'sid with some sales, gives them a small cut. Buy them some drinks when you're in the tavern. Allow them some time to look for 'cool eq' when you're riding through a village or town they rarely get to see. Reward them when they do things well and, in return, they will begin to look for ways to serve you instead of waiting for you to tell them.

Provide them with a good set of policies and rules that empower them to do more than spar, spar, spar all day long. Give them a schedule of things to do and guidelines with which to do them so that you're both comfortable they won't run willy nilly into the sands to their death. If you don't set up these guidelines, people WILL die. They'll do it even if you DO set up good policies - I used to call it Kohmar disease when I played Khann.

I'd JUST finish buying armor, weapons, food, water and clothing for my new hire. Went over the rules and everything and the first thing they do when I'm not around is walk straight out the damn gate and die to krath-knows-what out in the desert. Wasted MY time and MY money. That happens over and over and over and over to -any- employer. Those of you whom are employees wanting to know why you may be paid so slowly - these are exactly the type of bad apples that make we leaders wary of handing out much at all.

The burden, and responsibility, of command.

You are responsible for EVERYTHING. If a player isn't have fun. Your fault. If an Imm hasn't made that special order yet, your fault. If your employee decided that it'd be fun to storm into the Trader's Inn and slaughter the single most powerful noble lord in all of the city because they were bored and thought it be 'k00l' - guess what? It's all your fault and you may be executed or punished because of the actions of another player you had NO CONTROL OVER.

This can be the single most frustrating thing about being a leader is the dreaded contact from a noble, templar or other such authority figure demanding you come speak with them about the actions of one of your employees. I know that ICly they want to bring the matter to your attention and ask why it has occurred. Someone's head has to roll. It should NOT be that of the employer, however, as they have about as much control over the players and their ultimate decisions as you have over what shirt they're wearing in RL.

In addition to this, you are responsible when people don't get paid because they log in at odd times or infrequently. You are responsible when they aren't having as much fun as they thought they would or when they get bored or when they can't figure out for themselves how to have a good time. You are always responsible and it hangs like a weight over your head to provide these things to people in your clan.

Setting goals and planning.

So, you've recruited a group of people. They train themselves and a few of them have actually managed to stay alive for more than 2 RL weeks and you want to actually use them now. As a leader, you need to take a look at your position and see what you want, and can, accomplish. Take a large long-term goal and chop it up into little sections, then set your men and yourself in motion on a timeline you'd like to see. Email the Imm Staff on your project and what you plan to do so they can jump in and help/hinder you along the way as they see fit within the confines of the game world.

Examples.

Goal: Free the dwarven slaves of the southern obsidian mines.

Step 1: Gather dwarves loyal to my cause. Train them. (ongoing)
Step 2: Establish a place of operations from which to train.
Step 3: Gather money to place bribes, hire men and get information.
Step 4: Case the mines, the guard rotations, the distance from the city.
Step 5: Meet with different nomadic tribes, asking for help.
Step 6: Meet with members of the target's enemies, asking for help.
Step 7: Meet with friends and neighbors, asking for help.
Step 8: Form a plan of attack that won't be reported to the enemy.
Step 9: Meet and gather the support of other dwarven tribes.
Step 10: Formalize the plan of attack and gather your forces.
Step 11: Set a date for the RPT, inform the Imm Staff.
Step 12: Let the RPT take its course.

Now, some of these steps may only take a few minutes while others will take RL months to handle properly. This will create a LOT of RP and direction toward a clan and its followers that gives it a drive and a reason for being. The men know the cause, they know what to do, they know why and the leader gives them the tasks they need to accomplish. You must also stay on top of everything and keep driven. Most importantly you must not DIE because if you do - almost all of your goals and planning fall apart as your employees die and leave the organization.

I could write all day about the trials and tribulations involved with being a clan leader, but I doubt anyone would want to spend the time.

Being a leader is DAMN hard work. You need to be online, attentive, diplomatic, considerate, understanding, firm, harsh, deceptive, manipulative, cunning, quick and fair all at the same time. It's not a job that anyone can do. Anything worthwhile takes time, so just put one foot in front of the other and keep things moving.

-LoD

[Quo]

Adding in a quote of the part I'm referencing to. When I started editing there was only one post to this thread, when I was done it filled nearly an entire page :)

Good Promotional Paths – Promotion shouldn't just happen because a PC has been in the house for X number of days.  Clans and houses should make everyone aware of the steps needed for promotion.

The promotional paths kind of remind me of 'levelling'. Most things you've mentioned are about motivation, and that is perfectly fine. To anyone who misses being promoted, I'd suggest that just surviving another day, year, or king's age is a hell of a lot of a promotion ;-)

On Motivation - There's a few  things that are equally valid be it chars, players, or immortals. Knowing these will help any leader to deal with his subordinates and vice versa, any player do deal with imms (I'm not writing vice versa here, because I got the impression that our immortals do know them pretty well).

[*] Being recognized for what you did.
[*] Pay is a means of recognition, but it gets easily taken for granted or is given automatically, so it quickly wears off. An increase in pay will have a very short-term effect on someones motivation, a reduction below a comparative level will have a lasting demoralizing effect.
[*]Feedback is one of the most underestimated effects, and it's not limited in rank or to leadership.
[*](added)Having a purpose or a goal goes a long way, and is mostly about intrinsic motivation. A good leader (or an exceptional commoner) can go a long way supplying this for his group. (This point jumped to my mind after reading the Krath's quotes of LoD's gems on Leadership - thanks for digging them up!)
[*] A group can have a carrying momentum, often due to a leader's charisma keeping the group together, but often just because they're a terriffic group of players. Just being part of that can be motivation enough for chars and players alike.
[/list]From this we can quicky tell the big motivation-killers

[*] Ignorance (This may be the reason why some chars/players have problems with solitude)
[*] belittling the efforts of someone else.[/list]
This list was mainly to show  that not only leaders, but other members of a group can take a carrying role for the group as well.
Quo

[Anonymous]

Theorize all you want. You either got it or you don't.

[Nidhogg]

Theorize all you want. You either got it or you don't.

I cannot disagree with this strongly enough. Leaving aside the game entirely, my experience in rl has been that most people, upon gaining their first leadership position suck. They go through a I have a title phase. They annoy and upset everyone they come in contact with. They fail and feel hurt and puzzled. Most people figure it out and improve. The ones who don't turn into the boss from office space.

[Tamarin]

I gotta say, my first attempt at leadership was medicore at best.  I botched several attempts at harsh in-clan discipline, I got a number of PCs killed because of my own stupidity, I kept my goals personal and non-communal.

I was, however, able to initiate some decent RP on a couple of random manhunts that materialized due to little more than pure luck.

Beyond that, I haven't bothered to try a similar position again.  I find that I do much better keeping to myself, and interacting with people that way.  It's amazing how you can end up leading people when you have little more than a collection of loose acquaintanceships.

[My 2 sids]

The promotional paths kind of remind me of 'leveling'.

I'm not sure what you meant by this.  I'm not talking about like other RPGs where you go up and down levels.  Think about real life.  Most good HR (human resource) directors can say exactly what is expected of any job in the company.  They should be able to tell you what it takes to go up the next rung.

Agent, I'm only trying to start a discussion on what everyone feels is most important for leader PCs.  If you don't want to participate with your own opinion instead of simply stating the obvious, then don't.   Not everyone may be introverted like you.  :wink:

Kank  actually most up-to-date data suggests that most everyone can be taught how to be an excellent leader.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Theorize all you want. You either got it or you don't.

That's a misleading statement.  Some people are natural leaders, yes, but the majority of people have to learn by trial and error.  Some people don't learn from their mistakes, obviously a poor quality for a leader to have, yes, but most people at least make some improvements over time.

It takes preparation and a good bit of continuing work to play a clan leader, especially the apped roles.

Preparation -

Know your environment.  Just like you read the docs and helpfiles before creating your character, make sure you're familiar with what you're getting yourself into as a clan leader.  It's quite possible to have character that, would be perfect in a different role or clan, but have them be completely wrong for the role you're in.

Factor in the OOC considerations.  Let's face it, a clan leader who has no reason to interact with the majority of the people in the clan is not going to be a very interesting or fun role.  Clans are all about the interaction, inside the clan, and outside the clan.  The more reasons you can find to be actively involved with people, the more fun you and they will have.  I'm not suggesting that all clan leaders have to be outgoing and interact with everyone in the clan - perhaps your style is more reserved, and you can always indirectly interact with people by delegating responsibilities to a select few individuals.

Continuing work -

Keep in touch with your clan immortals.  If you're out of ideas, they can nudge a plot your direction.  If you keep them informed, they can help you create and sustain your own plots.  Sometimes it's a chore to sit down and write that email, but you'll find that a lot of times, writing it down (typing it out, as the case may be) will help you clarify in your own mind what's going on and what you might want to do next.

Clan maintenance.  This is mostly for apped roles, but can apply to people who have risen through the ranks as well.  You want other PCs in your clan, but stick to sensible hiring policies.  Snatching up warm bodies just to fill space leads to discontent employees who break rules out of boredom.  It makes more sense to limit yourself to as many employees as you need to accomplish your goals as a clan leader (which may change over time, sometimes you need more, sometimes fewer), and to try to hire people whose characters fit the roles you need.

Have goals.  You don't have to have all your own goals; getting involved in existing plots is just as much fun as making your own.  In fact, if you get stalled on things that you're trying to accomplish, fishing around for what other people are doing can be a goal all by itself.

Learn from mistakes.  If something isn't working, don't keep coming at it from the same angle.  Change things around, change the goal, change how you approach the goal.  Otherwise, you'll just get frustrated and want to quit.

Don't give up right away.  It's going to be slow sometimes.  EXPECT it to be slow sometimes.  This is where it's handy to keep in touch with your immortals, because they can help pull you through the times when the wind goes out of your sails.  Things will not always go your way.  The surprises and plot twists aren't there to make you miserable, they exist to entertain you and the other people involved.  There's a time and a place to say enough's enough, and only you know when you're really done.  But at least give a shot at working through things.

Clan leadership roles require patience.  Here, I'll put that in caps, because it deserves to be restated.  CLAN LEADERSHIP ROLES REQUIRE PATIENCE.  I'm not saying your character has to be patient, but you, the player, are going to need it.