The Guild Leader II

If you’ve been following guild science for a while you might have read some of my articles about leadership. I was very pleased when I received an email regarding one of those articles where I made some recommendations on military personnel as leaders. Here is what I received:

Hello

I am several months late to your guild leader selection article but still feel compelled to reply. I honestly believe you are wrong about military leadership. You are associating a style of giving orders with a broader approach to leading. Having read some of your other works I do trust you know those are not the same thing. Leadership is far more then just giving orders. Being former military (11 years in the infantry and two wars) and being a current corporate leader I see the two styles contrasted heavily. Civilian leadership and military leadership are two very different things. But I find military leadership far more applicable to online gaming then civilian leadership.

First, military leadership is about people. Period the end. The soldiers who you train are your only asset. If they are motivated and well trained you succeed. Everything the military does is about its soldiers. Civilian leadership is task or asset focused. Its either about the money, or about the product. People can get fired, promoted, switch to a competitor, get hit by a bus, or whatever and you will just recruit another one. The point is that the civilian leader has to make sure the product continues to stay quality or the bottom line is still black and not red. This is just not the case in the military. If the soldiers are demoralized and untrained the leader needs replacing. If they are motivated and trained promote him and let him train other leaders.

See why military leadership is better in guilds? The only “asset” an online leader has is his people. If they are motivated, play well, and are having fun they will stay and the guild will thrive. If the leader lets the tasks of the game become more important then the game people will leave, then the leader will recruit more, and the cycle continues but its never as quality as the first. Leaders who think of people first are the leaders you need in a social game. Don’t knock military leadership so hard just because a version for it can be rough. Most military leaders know that barking at people is appropriate for a time and a place. If online gaming ever becomes real life and death stuff I will go back to it, but that is not the case. Leaders who can never move on from that style shouldn’t give the rest of us a bad rep, it should point out they have some other qualities that should have barred them from leadership in the first place.

Have a good one,

Hammerstone

After reading the letter and then going back over my own work I had to admit that I had poorly expressed my feelings on the subject and certainly didn’t evaluate every conclusion. As such, I considered it a great opportunity to elaborate and revise. With Hammerstone’s permission I posted his letter and wrote this article.

One point that Hammerstone makes is undeniable; that the military is about soldiers. The army isn’t in the business of turning a profit like a publicly traded company. The emphasis is on training and retention of soldiers instead of find, use, and replace. This focus is especially true with non-commissioned officers. As the primary caretakers of the men and women in uniform they exemplify this management style.

This, essentially, supports his point that a military style of leadership is more appropriate for a guild structure. On this I completely agree. Guilds are not profit generating organizations. They are organizations that succeed based on their individual members. We would all do well to remember that.

Hammerstone also touches on what I poorly tried to articulate in my earlier article. Some military leaders might have difficulty moving on from a “bark orders” environment to the looser and chaotic realm of civilian organizations. He states they are the exception and not the rule. Considering how many military and former military individuals I deal with on a daily basis I again must agree. I was unfair to blanket an entire demographic as I did. Consider my warning contingent that the person in question is having difficulty in the transition.

That all said, what can we learn from all this and how does it relate specifically to a guild leader? I’ve taken away the following lessons:

1. A guild leader should never be so narrowly focused that they only see the mission. They should recognize that without trained and prepared members the mission will not matter or be successful.

2. A guild leader is only as good as the members that follow them. Nobody can achieve high end success alone. If you’re constantly experiencing turnaround in your guild you need to reevaluate your leadership style.

Remember those rules and I think you’ll do well. Stray too far and you might be doing more harm than good. Finally, try not to shoehorn everyone into a single model based on a bad experience or two. We all make mistakes though!