Leadership and ALFA

[Duck One]

People sometimes get a distorted view of leadership. They think of the movie portrayal of the boss with his huge corner office and private parking space who get to order people around and get all kinds of attention. Like most things distorted in the movies, nothing could be further from the truth. It might do well for those put into leadership positions here to understand the reality of it.

It is often a messy and tedious job that requires getting into the personal lives of others. Leadership is seeing the glare from the woman in the grocery store that is recognized from the Christmas party as the wife of the man recently fired, and not being able to tell her, for fear of a lawsuit, that the real reason was because he was harassing another woman in the office. Leadership is deciding who in the platoon is going to charge that machine gun nest knowing the decision will likely lead to death.

Leadership is a job. It requires a certain set of skills and character traits, and comes with responsibilities. General Custer was a leader, and by all accounts a fine one, but he is remembered in history for his one failure which got him and all of his men killed. Every decision, large or small, can and likely will be second-guessed. Even if it isn’t always noticed, the leader will know and understand that his choices had repercussions, and the guilt will be his alone to bear.

The real job of a leader is to support those around him; give them the skills and tools to be successful. It is part teacher, cheerleader, guidance counselor, police officer, mediator, mentor, drill sergeant, and a whole host of other kinds of jobs. It is often messy and unpleasant, and seldom nearly as prestigious and glorious as Hollywood might have you believe. Leaders never seem to clock out. The phone can ring at any hour and they are pressed into service. Even when they are away from the job, they are often focusing problems which is an ever-present source of stress and distraction.

Some of the posts I have seen here in ALFA regarding leadership have some important points confused. Leadership is not power to impose your vision upon others. Leadership is the responsibility to serve the community by making decisions that support their best interests. It is a stressful and often thankless job which never ends until someone mercifully relieves you of it.

Good leaders do not aspire to lead, they are called to it; compelled by a sense of duty to answer. They are people of character who are humble. They know their own limits, and willingly share the responsibility whenever practical. They consider themselves servants whose job happens to be one involving making hard decisions. They appreciate their constituents and really consider themselves to be one of them, not above them. They make decisions that may not benefit or even disadvantage them personally, but know it is the best thing for the overall group.

Once you have this perspective, it may change the whole tone of the talk about who is administrating ALFA. You may not envy the winner of an election, rather you may feel like offering them pity. Why do you think so few last very long? Why do you think so many burn out?

So when it comes to election and drama, take a deep breath and try to see the perspective of leadership that I have painted above. There really is no “winning” an election, because there is no “prize.” An election in ALFA is the selection of someone who will take on the assignment of responsibilities for a period. The result is not “congratulations”, it is “thanks for taking that burden.” The response is not “yeah, I have won”, but “I’ll try to do my best to keep it up until I am able to hand it over to the next person.” For this reason there should be no real drama about the process of elections or its outcome.

[Arianna]

+1

[maxcell]

Good read

[HEEGZ]

Semantics...

[Lucifer]

I agree totally with on is the reason our Government in the U.S. is soo messed up today, not enough selfless leaders whom wish to serve, too many who wish to have privelege and power. I would hope it is easier in a small gaming community designed for fun to avoid the same traps.

[gonz.0]

Well said Duck.

Also part of the reason, I don't run for any office here. I come to alfa to play, and to relax from stress filled life. Getting too involved takes away the relax part of that equation. Those tho are voted in, and act as leaders have my every respect and admiration. The ones who think of themselves as bosses, not so much. The good thing is, a leader is humble so he rarely knows when he /she is being a leader. A boss, knows when they are not being a leader.

Good luck, congratulations, and my condolences on being elected to office.

[danielmn]

It can be one hell of a balancing act, unpleasant a lot of the time, and in the end, even in the best of circumstances, you're lucky if at least one person doesn't refer to you as Hitler.

[Adanu]

The good thing is, a leader is humble so he rarely knows when he /she is being a leader.

Some of your post I can agree with, but this part I most definitely disagree with fundamentally. There are plenty of people out there who are not ignorant of their talent in this area and are no worse for wear socially.

I don't know where you come from that this idea is the norm for you.

[Zelknolf]

It's probably best not to look too closely at the details; words like "humble" mean vastly different things to different people. In this case, it sounds like something closer to "I like the good leaders, because I want to work with those guys; I dislike the bad leaders, because they tell me what to do!"

For both groups, it's being awake at the wee hours of the morning fixing whatever the problem du jour is-- and then you're popular or you're not. Being popular means that asking for a favor is plenty; being unpopular means that doesn't work-- and so your options are burning out doing it all yourself, trying to order people around, or doing a bad job. And then you're still Hitler, because this is still the internet.

[Duck One]

Humility is absolutely a hallmark of a good leader. But do not confuse humility with self-doubt. One can be aware of ability and talent without taking undue pride in it; that just because one’s skills differ from another’s does not mean that the two people are unequal; that using that talent for the benefit of all is the proper way to honor it.

History is full of proud men who rose to great levels of power. But their arrogance and lust for power will not inspire loyalty of the people. From Caesar to Hitler and scores of others, these people become targets of assassination from those closest to them, and the only way such people hold onto power is to be terribly paranoid and ruthlessly crush any sign of disloyalty, using extreme fear to keep the others in line. This is not leadership, it is tyranny.

Yes tyrants will draw a small cadre of loyalists: sycophants and hero worshipers; people inspired by the accomplishments of the tyrant and envious of their stature. But the common man who doesn’t share the lusts of the tyrant will not be inspired to be loyal, and the hero worshipers will bitterly turn on the tyrant if ever the tyrant ever fails to reward their loyalty. This is why so many tyrants are the subject of assassination attempts.

Let’s contrast tyranny and leadership:
• People obey the tyrant; people follow a leader.
• People reluctantly comply with a tyrant’s demands; People eagerly respond to a leader’s request.
• The tyrant is above the people; the leader is one of the people.
• People fear the tyrant; people respect the leader.
• The tyrant demands loyalty; the leader earns loyalty.

Also do not presume that a popular leader is well-liked personally. I worked with a man who was loud, crass, vulgar, opinionated, and a whole host of qualities that did not resonate with me on a personal level; not the guy I’d choose to have beers with after hours, and that opinion was shared by many. But he was an effective leader with most of the qualities I spoke about, and we supported him because we knew that with his leadership our team would do well.

There are also a lot of genuinely nice people who do not make good leaders. Leadership foremost about making decisions, and simply being personable doesn’t necessarily relate to do the analysis and have the conviction it takes to be decisive. Good leaders sometimes have to make unpopular decisions because it is the right thing to do for the group. Though an effective leader can be a nice person and personally popular, the two qualities are entirely separate and somewhat independent.

Gonzo’s point about leadership not always being a conscious effort is also true. Many people lead by example, setting the right tone and priorities that benefit the group. They may offer counsel, mediate a dispute, or offer up a helpful idea to the group just because they’re trying to be supportive, but in reality they are showing leadership.

I’ll go back to my original thesis: let’s hope those who aspire to take titles in ALFA do so because they understand the responsibility and complexities of leadership and therefore make wise decisions with a focus upon what is best for the entire group; let’s hope that the rest of the community appreciates the challenges and stress that is put upon people in those positions and gives them the opportunity to be successful in serving.

[Zelknolf]

My point was that this is at least in part a matter of perspective. To the people in these positions, the primary question is how well-liked they are. The popular leader is viewed as part of the in group, can use a light touch to cause changes, and generally gets compliance as part of being popular-- people like the person, or at least like their leadership, and are thus more likely to be compliant. Someone one who is already unpopular has very few tools to change their state, as all positions of power are a dialogue, and having half of a dialogue shut down means that all of it has shut down. If both example people have identical goals, each one attempting it would perpetuate their own current state-- as the popular will get to ask, and the unpopular will have to insist.

At least I've never met anyone who wanted to be a black-hatted bad guy twirling a handlebar moustache and tying a Canadian damsel to the train tracks. Sure, folk get cynical; folk get frustrated; folk choose words poorly. Everyone's an ass sometimes. I'd just ask that we be careful about trying to box people into dichotomies of "good leader"/"bad leader" or "leader"/"tyrant"-- I'm seeing posts here gravitate toward eyerolling at "Oh (s)he knows who (s)he is," as they've already decided which boxes people fit into and aren't challenging themselves to empathise with the positions.

[Ithildur]

The debates and books about what leadership really is, what it's not, not to mention what effective leadership is/is not etc. are myriad.

Agreed, someone can be an effective leader in a number of ways while not exactly inspiring mass devotion; if someone makes decision after decision that results in wildly successful results people will tend to follow them as Duck noted, even if they may not exactly love 'em.

However if they truly lack success in relating well with the people that they're leading, eventually minimum they'll least go through changes of personnel around/below them that may result in loss of effectiveness (and higher level of stress for himself and those that do remain). They may alienate the populace which can also hamper overall effectiveness. Eventually (might take months or decades) they'll find themselves largely alone in one sense or another other than a small pool of die hard devotees who continue in their devotion due to any number of the reasons listed by Duck; that opens the door to the possibility of them become resentful and angry (if they weren't already such to begin with) 'tyrrants' hanging on to power/influence, or assassinated in one form or other (not necessarily physically killed). Sometimes they simply get voted out, but I think the first two are more likely. Or they have a moment of realization, and resign to attempt to return to sanity.

Vastly over-simplified, but I think often true.

I'm not implying anyone in ALFA actually fits that bill; simply pointing out that in the end, leadership involves OTHER people following the leader, saying 'I'm gonna go to bat for this person, maybe even if it costs me time/energy/personally/financially/etc'. Effective leadership involves other people willingly (to some degree at least; reality may mean some people have to get dragged along for a while) following the leader without coercion/threat etc. Great leadership, people gladly follow, often with genuine smiles at the end of the day/week even if some shouting matches went on earlier. Iconic leadership, they do this, but they started out with an initially reluctant or even hostile base of people they eventually won over, etc. Bottom line, it involves people, relating with people.

An effective WORKER works hard and gets things done. An effective LEADER gets a team of people to do that TOGETHER.

It's not an easy thing; it's not a common thing. This holds true in both RL and ALFA. And it's not always black and white 'they're a good leader/they're a bad leader'... most folks have a mix of strengths and weaknesses in various aspects of leadership. Nor does any of this take away from the fact I sincerely appreciate the many volunteer efforts from many people involved with this project; some of them work their butts off, which in itself inspire a degree of willingness to follow/respect/be influenced by such folks, i.e. an element of good leadership.

One other thought: the defining test of whether someone's simply superficially popular vs actually being an effective leader is how much people are willing to endure/pay/sacrifice when asked by that person. A superficially popular person, if they ask folks to actually ante up, will not get much results.

[Mikayla]

Just saw this. Nice post Duck. I wasn't paying enough attention to know why you posted it and in what context, but its a nice analysis of leadership. As someone who has been in many leadership roles, from being a sergeant in the Army to President of a Board of Directors, I generally agree with what you've said, especially the part about it being a job. Leadership is work, and its responsibility. Its not, as you mentioned, simply imposing your will on others (that is tyranny as you astutely noted). Anyway, I know I'm late to this party, but I liked the post.