Leadership Management

1. Introduction

Leadership in the Brotherhood requires a delicate combination of creativity, dedication and commitment. Many leadership duties are covered elsewhere in various courses, but this course will attempt to provide further tools to assist with leadership, and more specifically, management.

Only experience can truly teach you how to be a competent leader, but hopefully you’ll gain some additional ideas and skills that can help continue your development.

2. What is Leadership in the Brotherhood?

To begin, it’s useful to understand what leadership in our organization actually is. Firstly, a leadership position is one of responsibility. By applying for and receiving a leadership position, you make yourself responsible to the unit or organization and the members. You take on personal responsibility for ensuring that the members are having an enjoyable experience, and put yourself in their service.

Secondly, leadership entails commitment. Although circumstances often conspire against us, you should endeavor to be able to hold your position for an extended period of time - usually the longer the better. If you know of a major time constraint in real life, now or in the near future, then you should think twice about applying for a leadership position. At the very least, you should discuss it with whomever you’re applying to.

Finally, leadership requires good communication skills. As a leader, you will be expected to liaise with long-standing and new members of your House/Clan, and other House/Clan leaders. You should be able to form opinions and give them without causing offense. You should be approachable and able to solve problems, and you should be able to help mediate if necessary.

3. Becoming a Leader

In most cases you’re not simply handed a position of leadership within the Brotherhood. Much like in the real world, when positions are open there will be a call for applications with the position’s prerequisites. Position announcements are normally posted to the news page of the Brotherhood website, mentioned in a report, mentioned in Clan chat rooms, and/or emailed out via a unit’s mailing list (usually all of the above). Once you know that applications are being accepted (and ensure you meet the requirements), you’re faced with the question: what should you include and what happens next?

Standard Inclusions:

  • ID line: An application is no use to anyone, if the people selecting the final candidate don't know who you are.
  • Relevant experience: The selectors need to know, whatever your rank, what sort of leadership experience you have. List anything from the Brotherhood that you have done. Relevant experience in other clubs or gaming clans can be included, too. Real life jobs can be listed if they are applicable (being a database programmer, for example, could be listed by a Seneschal applicant).
  • Plans: This is the most important part. You may have no leadership experience whatsoever, but your ideas and plans may yet get you noticed. You should be able to demonstrate how you intend to improve activity, keep morale high, and win competitions. Don't worry if your email extends over several pages as long as you are presenting meaningful, substantive ideas. A crucial aspect of providing plans is also prioritization of plans. Are they short term or long term? What resources would they require? Provide detail and direction where and when possible. Remember: don’t just say what you plan to do; say how you plan to do it.

A Note on Applications:

This is definitely something you need to check: If your application has misspellings, horrible grammar, or simply looks bad, you might as well forget about the position. Have a friend proofread your application before you send it in. And don't forget to run that spellchecker!

4. What Leading Entails

You’ve applied for the position and, congratulations, you’ve been chosen! Now what? Sometimes, the size of a job won't hit you until it's yours and you're expected to know what to do. You may feel that you've been thrown into a pool of sharks to sink or swim. This section of the course offers some guidelines and suggestions for what a good leader does in their position.

4.1 Your First Steps

First and foremost, don't panic. Everyone who has been or is a leader in the Brotherhood has probably felt overwhelmed at times. Remember that you're not alone - you're more than welcome to ask other leaders for assistance, if necessary.

Second, be active. There's a lot to do in your first few days as a newly appointed leader. Plus, your members are watching you closely right now because even if you're a long-time member of the group, your members may not know your leadership style and will want to feel you out. The best impression is that of a person who is confident, competent, and capable, and the best way to seem like such a person (even if you don’t feel like it at the moment!) is to be active and visible in your first few days.

Moving on from general guidelines, what specifically do you do now? One of the first things you should do is contact everyone you are now responsible for. Discord, reports, emails or any other platform used by your unit are acceptable. Introduce yourself, give a little background information, and open the door for any possible queries your members may have. Also take the time to outline a few key points such as how you intend to handle promotions, competitions, activity, etc. Of note for e-mails, it is recommended - though not required - to send one-on-one e-mails to your members. Personalize your correspondence for the member in question, and make them know that you care about their well-being in the club. We are all a part of the same community, and sometimes all it takes to get a member talking is a reminder that we care about them.

Next, make sure your report is in on time. Most positions require a report once a month, so perhaps pick a day of the month that is fairly easy to remember and always try to get your report out on that day or as close to it as possible! Also spend your first week in office planning some form of competition. These first few days allow you to set the tone for the entire rest of your tenure.

Finally, although the unit is yours to command, you should make sure to handle major changes carefully; consult with members and the leaders above you before making final decisions and keep their concerns in mind. Don't forget that it is your members who will make or break your plans, so remember to include them and not to override their wishes. Also, answer any and all questions your members have as quickly as you can.

4.2 Motivation

Likely one of the most important things to understand about serving as a leader in the DJB is that we are a fan-based organization comprised of and led by volunteers. Members join the club for recreation; leaders make a commitment to help those members enjoy their time and grow within the club. With that said, how do you motivate a group of online volunteers?

When posed with that question, many would say through awards and promotions. Although those are excellent motivators, they are not the only options. There will be times when a member must wait for a promotion or award due to time-in-grade requirements or because a project has not yet been completed. In these and other situations, a simple “thank you” can go a long way towards making someone feel appreciated. Another possible motivator is to assign responsibility for an important project to an eager member, especially if that member is looking to move into leadership in the future.

Sometimes members will disappear suddenly, even if they have been very motivated and active in the past. There is an automated AWOL (“Absence Without Leave”) check that results in the removal of inactive members, but before it takes place it is important to try to establish contact with such people. Their absence may be the result of a temporary problem, like a hectic work or school schedule, which may disappear in a relatively short period of time. Reach out and ask what is going on and assure a member that he or she is welcome to return to active service at any suitable time. However, you should be careful not to press too much: always remember that your members are less likely to return to active duty if they feel pressured to do so.

Besides motivating your members, you need to be able to motivate yourself as well. A leader who is not eager and self-motivated enough to fully dedicate themselves to their tasks is likely to discourage their members regardless of what they say to them. A good leader leads by example, inspiring their members to try and live up to the ideal. For this to work, you need to be certain, confident, and highly motivated yourself.

There is also a risk that with the course of time, one may burn out and lose the drive to continue their work. Burned-out leaders tend to have their performance as a leader noticeably suffer. Leaders suffering from burnout are just going through the motions and must consider resigning for three reasons: first, burnout can spread through a unit as other leaders and members fall into complacency; second, a burnt out leader may grow disgruntled, negatively impacting the mood of the unit; third, a burnt out leader is keeping a valuable and rare leadership position occupied when there are likely to be a number of eager, less-experienced candidates who could make a positive impact and advance their careers.

The same is true for leaders who lack the time to carry out their duties. It is not a shame to resign when you cannot continue to satisfy the requirements of your post. Again, the Brotherhood is an all-volunteer organization. It thrives on the vitality and energy of its active members, and inactive or overly time-constrained leaders take away from that vitality. A little time off from leadership or a short break from the club can be a very effective way to recharge.

4.3 Goals and Delegation

It is also important to set yourself goals. Create a series of specific, measurable, achievable and relevant goals. You will sometimes even be asked to create a set of goals when applying for a leadership position to show what sort of things you feel need to be worked on if you are picked for the position. If possible, leaders should find ways to measure progress towards their goals in objective ways. For instance, a new Consul may hope to increase member recruitment and retention. That goal could be measured by comparing the number of new recruits to the Clan that have joined and stayed active after a certain amount of time has passed compared to the same metrics under the previous Consul. Goals are important because they provide a sense of direction; specific and measurable goals allow you to not only provide a direction to your team but to quantify your success or failure to achieve that direction, which can help you to craft better solutions in the future.

However, don’t forget that you have a unit full of eager members! Delegation allows leaders to share the development and management of their units with members who have an interest in exploring aspects of leadership. As long as a leader is not delegating just to avoid work while retaining the power and prestige of office, delegation is a perfectly acceptable and common - even encouraged - practice. Delegation is also important to the health of the Brotherhood overall, as it allows you to directly assist in training the next generation of leaders. However, as the leader delegating, you need to remember you are ultimately responsible for the finished product!

4.4 Communication

Likely the most important thing that a good leader does in our organization is communicate effectively. We cannot function without communication as literally every other aspect of leading in the Brotherhood is contingent on communicating.

Communication is the best way to resolve most issues that might arise with your members. Though we are a club of volunteers who come together to have fun, conflict will still sometimes occur. As a leader it will sometimes fall to you to step in and mediate disputes. If you do so, always ensure you’re being fair and try to find a mutually agreeable solution. Remember that other leaders can assist you with this if you feel unable or uncomfortable, and that the Justicar and his staff are always available as well.

Perhaps the most important communication you can send is to a new member. When a recruit joins the Brotherhood, completes the Trial of Identity, and is assigned to your unit, you should always take the time to send a person welcome, even if you have a Rollmaster or other leader assigned to that task. Keep it short and simple, but make it meaningful.

5. Improving your Unit

Remember that even the best leaders should not rest on their laurels. Running an excellent unit requires constantly innovating and pushing forward, as complacency is just as much a threat as burnout to the perfect functioning of any unit in the Brotherhood. In order to do so, you must first understand where the strengths and weaknesses of your unit lie; then, it might be helpful to look outside your unit for ideas to address those weaknesses; and finally, you should strive to constantly improve your unit. This section of the course should help you in all three of those areas.

5.1 Analysis

To know where the strengths of your unit are, while also knowing where you need to focus for improvement, engaging in regular and systematic analysis can be helpful. Doing so can make a leader more aware of the state of the unit and brewing issues that could require his or her personal attention. This sometimes takes the form of a discussion among the leadership group - your fellow members of the House or Clan Summit, for instance. This sort of discussion tends to be a fairly informal unit analysis.

Analyzing an organization can be done in numerous ways, with no set parameters or specifics. Unit or organizational analysis is always circumstantial, and your analysis will be determined by the issue at hand. For example, if you’re attempting to increase activity in future competitions or events within a Clan, try to formulate a method that could potentially provide you information as to the cause of the current activity. If you can determine why members are not as active as the previous quarter, then you can develop a solution for the future.

No set method of organizational analysis exists within the Brotherhood, but it is highly recommended that leaders do their own research, and remember that analysis is always circumstantial. You can use the same method for different situations, or different methods to tackle the same problems. Just be knowledgeable of your method, knowledgeable of your organization, and focused on the issue you wish to tackle.

5.2 Benchmarking

No matter the format used, you will notice needs that your unit has that must be met. It can be useful to reach out to others in order to solve whatever issues you discover through a process called benchmarking. Benchmarking follows a simple principle: always learn from the best. When you use benchmarking, you are seeking the best solutions already available on the “market.” Different types of benchmarking are used in the real world, but for our purposes we can define benchmarking quite simply as going outside your unit to gain understanding and knowledge: how are others in a similar position to you doing things, and how can you adapt what works well for others to your unit? If you’re a new Rollmaster, for instance, you should reach out to other Rollmasters for tips and tricks.

Wholesale, unattributed theft of ideas is obviously wrong, but borrowing ideas from others and incorporating your own ideas into them is what allows us to learn from each other’s mistakes and successes. Some solutions will simply not work for you due to factors that are unique to a particular unit. Instead, see about making it your own, improving it, and altering the parameters to best suit the needs of the unit you serve.

5.3 Unit Development

Every unit requires constant development if it is to stay competitive and attractive for its current and future members. Unit development is multifaceted and includes: unit lore, recruitment, member support, and events.

  • Unit Lore: What is the fictional history that your unit has “lived through?” What events are on-going in the fictional world that your unit resides in? Does your unit have a standing army and navy? A unit’s lore is vital to providing a common story for members of the unit to base their own characters in and background and compelling continuing storyline can differentiate your unit from the others in the Brotherhood. The Wiki and Discourse forums are vital parts of this; as a unit leader always ensure your unit’s various articles on the Wiki have been created and are updated as necessary with useful content, while pushing for your members to use the forums for fiction and run-ons.
  • Recruitment: Recruitment is the lifeblood of any organization, and that is certainly not different in the Brotherhood. Utilize every opportunity you’re given to invite people to join you in the fun and excitement of the DJB, through whatever medium you feel comfortable in - other online games, Facebook, or even real world friends and family. Think of what brought you to this organization and build from there.
  • Member Support: But once you have these members, how do you keep them active, train them, help them, and reward them when appropriate? As a leader in the Brotherhood, there are countless tools that our incredible Seneschal, his staff, and others have created for us such as the Promotheus tool to keep track of member’s activity. Many units also have developed guides to “get members up to speed” with the current state of the unit and how it operates. The most important and vital aspect of member support, is ensuring regular and open communication with your members.
  • Events: A unit leader should never forget, however, that above all else their job is to ensure their members are having fun. One of the key ways to do that is through competitions, whether they be simple gaming or writing competitions or full-fledged events that push forward the lore and the storyline of a unit, like a Vendetta. Get to know your members and try to cater these events to what they might enjoy and find interesting. For more information about competitions, refer to the related Leadership Competitions Course.

As a leader, make sure to keep an eye on each of these fields and keep the unit moving forwards. Do not cling to the past for the sake of tradition, but instead look at existing projects and policies with a critical eye.

5.4 Project Management

As stated earlier, good leaders sets goals for themselves and their units. Sometimes, these goals revolve around projects and big changes they wish to implement that will take time - creating a spreadsheet of all of your unit’s Wiki articles in order to audit them, for example, or creating a new Master/Student Program. Briefly, let us discuss some suggestions for successful project management:

  1. First and foremost: always make sure to set a clear goal when starting a project. Also set requirements for it to meet. When is the project finished? What does it need to achieve? Why are you doing this, what does the unit gain from it? Make sure to clearly outline the start and end of the project. Finally, make certain that everyone working on it understands the importance and requirements of the project, as well as how their segment relates to the overall success of the work.
  2. Second, make sure to set a deadline. Sure, it may get bumped back or postponed, but there needs to be a target end for the project, something for the members to work towards and plan around. Try setting up smaller deadlines as well by selecting end dates for discrete parts of the project. Always be sure to understand the “critical path” of your project: if a certain piece is required to complete another piece, make sure to tackle those elements in the correct order so that you do not inadvertently create a bottleneck. For example, to successfully audit the content of your unit’s Wiki pages, it is important to first have a list of Wiki articles for your unit. The critical path determines the minimum amount of time necessary to complete a project, so identifying the tasks that comprise the critical path may help you set and meet reasonable deadlines and keep your project on track.
  3. Finally, it is also important to learn to delegate. As a leader, you will not be able to run everything yourself, nor should you wish to do so. Working on projects as well as leading them is an integral part of promoting to the next rank. As such, it is advised to have one or two projects running whenever you have the chance. Find someone to run your projects and give them some leeway. Keep an eye on their work, request regular reports on progress and logs of who did what, but do not micromanage. With that said, remember what was stated earlier in the course: you are ultimately responsible as the leader of the unit even if you delegate assignments and projects to others, so at the end of the day you’re where the “buck” stops.

It is important to properly reward those members who have devoted time to help improve the unit via project work. Small projects or supporting roles on projects are best awarded with lower-tier merit medals such as the Dark Cross or the Anteian Cross. Larger participation in a project or even running a medium to large project may be rewarded with a Steel Cross or Grand Cross of the Dark Side.

In some cases, a project is so vast, or affects the Club in such a profound manner that sacramental awards are appropriate. The Consul or Quaestor of an independent unit is able to award up to a Sapphire Blade. The Master at Arms will advise you on what award is appropriate for a given project. For a more detailed look at awards, refer to the related Leadership Rewards Course on how to reward your members.

6. Summary

Hopefully, this brief course has given you a solid basis of knowledge on how to lead a unit. However, true leadership cannot be learned from course notes; it must come from day-to-day service to a unit and the Dark Jedi Brotherhood.

This course was developed from a number of sources, including the previous Leadership Studies SA course and original material written by Xantros. Further material was created by Laren Uscot and Farrin Xies.

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