What does the phrase “a good leader” invoke in your mind? Is the leader someone that is honorable and honest? Are they effective in controlling their surroundings? Are they a good military leader? To paraphrase Supreme Justice Stewart, “I can’t define pornography but I know it when I see it.” Good leadership is much like that and attempts to define it may fall short but can be a beneficial exercise regardless. A good leader can a identify a goal and organize a group of people to pursue said goal. That’s a fairly standard definition of what a good leader is. What of course this is fairly vague and misses out some of the key aspects of details. So let’s look at some attributes and tips that can help us define a good leader.
Have enough confidence to know when to say no, but also be humble enough to realize other people have great ideas. We’re limited finite beings and to assume any one individual has the answers to everything will lead to great loss. Each member in your corp or alliance is a possible source of your next great move, or an embarrassing blunder. A leader’s talent is in spotting the good ideas from the bad and to be open to the former while avoiding the latter.
Far too often leaders compete with their subordinates. Some leaders feel that if they are not the center of attention in their group, that somehow they will lose their power and be discarded. This level of egoism and insecurity is pure poison to any organization. Withholding credit from your members will only cause them to resent you and more than likely plot to even do harm to your position. Extolling them on the other hand will more likely earn you their loyalty and even motivate other members into benefiting the group as a whole. Your job as a leader is not to come up with every good idea or earn every bit of credit possible, it’s to manage. The best leader is the type that if he were to step away from his position, most of the people would not even notice his absence.
Greed looks ugly and belittles you in the eyes of your members. As a leader of course you are entitled to some of the first picks of the spoils of war. You’re the one, (at least you should be) that manages the group into finding content and opportunities so your time for pve may be very limited. However, sitting around with a bunch of moons and pocketing the resources is not proper to do. Sooner or later the group as a whole finds out and you may find your ranks thinning. On the contrary you should be giving. Assets can come and go but the people that make your team are invaluable. Reward your directors and give them a reason to stay. If you’re a CEO or Alliance exec, ask yourself right now, do your subordinates of rank have a good reason to stay? Are their needs taken care of? If they’re not they may find better employment elsewhere. No one wants to be loyal to a leader that is not loyal to them in turn.
Everyone realizes that Eve is a game and that people should be laid back, but that needs to be done with some balance. If you frequently disrespect your fleet commanders, your diplomats, your logistic team members etc, you will breed resentment. Furthermore, you’ll also cause a lack of confidence for your directors among your line members. If you as the leader discredit your fleet commander, why would your line members respect their orders and form up for fleets? This sort of behavior is again due to a misconceived notion that the leader needs to compete with his directors. A good leader will do everything possible to underline their director’s effectiveness and this in turn speaks well for you as a leader for it was the leader after all who picks and makes up the team.
There may be times when you’re in conflict with another entity and the opposition may choose to focus on a particular director. Don’t feed into that. The enemy is seeking to assassinate the character of one of your directors and you need to be especially supportive. Losing a fleet commander or diplomat can be detrimental especially during a conflict. The integrity of your leadership team and the stability of your group is the primary concern.
The leader isn’t suppose to know how to do every single thing. If another director has a good relationship with a possible ally, allow them to pursue, maintain and develop that relationship. If a director is particularly talented in developing doctrines, give them some room to consider and expand their ideas. This also falls in the realm of respect.
I’m all for meta gaming, using cunning and understanding “all warfare is deception.” But you cannot base your corp/alliance on deception and lies either. This isn’t an appeal to ethics, this is an appeal to structural integrity. If your entity is hinged on a particular lie, it’s only as strong as that one lie.
Taking into account all the other points, it’s all brought together by your vision. There needs to be an idea that members aspire toward. If that idea is to be the best mining corp in Eve, focus on that. If the idea is to hold a particular region, or to play by a certain, whatever it may be, you need to make it clear and reinforce it and follow through. Your vision amounts to what your group seeks to do but also how they view themselves. If your vision is strong enough, you can shape an entire culture and with that form of unity, all your goals become easier to accomplish.
There are plenty of other aspects that could be attributed to a good leader. But I feel this is a strong basis for any leader and could be used as a helpful guide to any aspiring CEO. It can also be used by line members considering whether they want to join or leave a particular group.
– Seraph IX Basarab
