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Leadership in EVE Corporations

Published on 30. Oct, 2008 ... written by Sam Guss, Tags: Articles, EVE Newb, Latest

by Sam Guss … Small corporations of real life friends and associates will often have a small circle of leaders to run the corporation. What happens however, when you want to grow your small corporation into a mega-corporation? With how scams and scandals happen within Eve and corporate espionage, it is often a risky undertaking to increase the corporation and the leadership as the corporation grows. This article is designed as a guide to help a growing corporation work through the trials and tribulations this time can bring upon your corporation.

Security
The security question is the biggest hurdle to overcome. The easy solution is to simply have those you know in real life become your leadership structure. There are some problems that arise with this type of outlook however. For starters, just because you know someone does not immediately qualify them to be good leaders. Second of all, while this approach can be (and should be) used for smaller corporations, once you start growing your corporation, this may simply not be feasible.

So how do you bring in potential leaders into your corporation while ensuring you minimize any security leaks? There are a couple of things you can do actually. While no method other than sole-leader is ever 100% safe, these suggestions can keep your security tighter. Before you let someone in your corporation anyway, you should be doing background checks. In Eve, this means checking out their employment history and contacting the leaders of the corporations they’ve been involved in. Second, while some will skip this step, you should never skip it if this person is going to be promoted into leadership – get screen shots of logins.

The first login screen should include the drop down menu of all accounts. The second and following screenshots should be the screen that shows off all of the players’ alts. This info should be considered confidential, and you can see if any of the character names sets off alarms, etc. You can and should if you have any doubts about any of the alts, do a similar background check in regards to talking to previous corporations.

The last BIG step you can take to ensure better security is to find potential leaders before you grow too big. Most scam artists are not going to target smaller corporations and sit around and wait for the ripe moment. They need to get in and get out, with as little sit time as possible for smaller corporations. For larger corporations, the wait can be an asset and so they are more willing for time to go by. So, find potential leaders early in your corporations’ history and develop them so they become loyal leaders of the future of your corporation.

There is one more way to attract leaders once you are growing and becoming larger and that is through acquisition of other players that haven’t been involved in your corporation, but may have been through alliances, friends you’ve met in-game, etc. This method allows for a “try before you buy” approach to finding good leaders, who through this method offers very little threat to security.

Leadership Types
We’re going to explore some of the various leader stereotypes and the pros and cons of each. One of the hardest things to realize and accept sometimes, is that a variety of leadership roles can be very useful to your corporation and the larger your corporation grows, the more variety in these leadership types you may need to run your corporation.

The CEO can come from any of the leadership types below, though IMO the “delegation leader” makes the best CEO’s. Various other leadership types work well with various leadership roles, for example a “dictator leader” can make a very good Fleet Commander. Keep in mind the pros and cons of the various leadership types as you recruit and promote your leadership structure and be prepared to deal with both the positives and the negatives.

Inspirational Leader
As the stereotype title implies, an inspirational leader inspires us. They are the best cheerleaders of a corporation and will often be found writing posts on the forums and in-game that always strives to make a corporation better and stronger. They are often found to be those trying to lead others as they find various conquests within a game, be it a gang, a mission runner or a miner.

The cons of an inspirational leader is that they can and will often bite off more than they can chew and lead people astray, which can cause hard feelings from those who follow them. To contradict these cons, make sure you keep inspirational leaders in check by assigning them tasks and ops that you know they both enjoy and are capable of running. By keeping the inspirational leader busy in this way, you minimize the cons and maximize the pros.

Pros for the inspirational leader are pretty self evident. Unlike the charismatic leader below, people follow the inspirational leader because they buy into their vision. This keeps your members busy with various tasks and you have a leader within the ranks. Inspirational leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• Small Gang Warfare (Faction, pirate, roaming)
• Mining Ops
• Manufacturing and Trade Ops
• Exploration Ops*

Charismatic Leader
My definition of the charismatic leader is the one most likely to be voted “most popular”. They are friends with most people in your corporation, are usually spoken well of and can sometimes be found as the leaders of “cliques” within your corporation.

The cons of a charismatic leader are the fact that they will often be in charge of various cliques within your corporation. This can be dangerous in the fact that if they feel slighted or fall out of vision for your corporation, it is often this type of leader that can pull away with them several of your members. Sometimes they can have a sense of entitlement.

Along with the bad though, comes the good. For the most part, charismatic leaders can be great people and indeed you should have at least one of them in your leadership ranks. Because of the cons though, be sure this is someone you either know outside of game or have come to know real well in-game. The reason being is that you will probably want to use this type of leader in a key position. Charismatic leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• Recruiting*
• Mission Running
• Diplomacy*

Tech Savvy Leader
These are the unspoken hero’s of leadership IMO. A tech savvy leader may not be the person leading a group of members on some quest or in war. They are however very influential to how a corporation is perceived both in and out of game. Every corporation should have at least one of these leaders if not more. Please note, that a tech savvy leader isn’t necessarily in charge of members of even the corporation itself, but rather outside of this scope and onto more non-social activities, such as the running of a forum, or web site, or keeping the in-game recruitment messages up to date, etc.

The pros should be obvious. A tech savvy leader, who has mad skillz, will make your corporation look sharp both in and out of game. Best of all they enjoy doing the type of stuff, most of us don’t want a part in.

The cons are more on the corporation leader than on the tech savvy leader. Tech savvy leaders will often take on project after project without complaint, until the day you add too much to their basket and suddenly leave you holding the entire basket. For them, they want to enjoy the game and a lot of their work for the corporation will be just that – work. To contradict this, simply ensure you keep open and honest communication open with these types of leaders and try to spread the work around. Tech savvy leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• Logistics
• Webmaster*
• Recruiting
• Marketing*

OCD Leader
I love the OCD Leader. Really, I do. These folks are your best friend in your leadership structure. They are the simply the best at keeping things organized, I mean really who better to keep everything organized than the OCD person?

The cons are few but worth noting. For starters, an OCD leader will often be ahead of you (unless your OCD as well) on what is happening within the corp. While this acceptable for most OCD’s, if they get too far ahead of you, they can literally challenge you for the topmost leadership. An OCD leader can also get overwhelmed, so be sure to understand their limits on how much they want to control or be in charge of.

The pros way outweigh the cons though. I strongly suggest you have a couple different OCD leaders within your leadership structure, handling various tasks. They are extremely well organized (at least within their means of efficiency) and should be in key roles of your leadership structure. OCD leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• Financing*
• Trade and Manufacturing*
• Member Liaison*
• Goal Planning*
• Mission Running
• Mining Ops

Experience and Teaching Leader
Nothing beats actual experience. In this case, we’re not necessarily talking about experience in leading, but in experience in what the person is leading for. For example, if you have someone who is a Mining King, and knows every in and out of mining and has the in-game skills to back it up, this is a natural “experience leader”.

An experience leader has few cons but they can be serious ones. For example, just because a pilot has the skills that allows him to do “x”, does not mean he has the aptitude to do “x” very well. So be sure to look at both the in-game skill set of the pilot, as well as the pilot themselves before deciding if this person would be a good leader.

Sometimes you are going to luck out and have someone who is not just experienced but can also teach well! Put this person in a leadership position immediately. The payoffs are huge as you gain training for your corp members and future experienced leaders. Experience and teaching leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• Training programs*
• PvP*
• Mission Running
• Mining
• Everything/Anything (niche)

Dictator Leader
The dictator leader is probably one of the most common leadership stereotypes out in Eve. The term dictator has negative connotations, but is not necessarily all evil. In fact, I would argue that they have a place in MMO’s that have guild, clan or corporation organizations in them and in particular some aspects of Eve.

A dictator is someone who is simply used to being in charge and it comes across in their voice, in how they talk. They are used to giving out instructions and them being followed. Just like any of the stereotypes listed here there are pros and cons to this leadership style.

The cons are some people who are dictators are not the nicest people around. They demand instead of command. They shout out orders expecting them to be followed, yet the orders make no sense other than it was indeed an order. The world is full of these types and indeed you can spot them from far off in Eve.

On the positive side, someone who is confident and able to make quick decisions, that can stand by them and for the most part work out for the best, are some of the best leaders you will want in your corporation. In other games they are called Raid Leaders. In Eve, we call them Fleet Commanders. Yes, my friends, some of the best FC’s in the game are indeed the dictator leader stereotype. Dictator leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• Fleet Commander*
• Mining Ops
• Finances

Delegation Leader
In my opinion, the delegation leader is the best type of leader to be a CEO or other major officer in a corporation. Like all the other leadership types though, there are some pros and cons.

Some delegation leaders delegate so much, that they are never truly in control or charge of anything. This sometimes gives off the impression that the leader is lazy. Indeed, that is something you can and will come across in this leadership stereotype. The best way to deal with this is to give that person a set of instructions that THEY are responsible for, and a list of things they are not – i.e. that they can delegate. They can also sometimes take all the credit instead of sharing it as it should be. To deal with this, simply be in the loop of whom they have delegated what to, and remind them of how that person helped get something accomplished.

The pros of a delegation leader are that they can accomplish much with very little. This means that the more they are given the more they can accomplish, which means if they are given even more they will accomplish that much more. They are often dreamers, big dreamers even and if given the resources the sky is literally the limit. Their strength is finding others to accomplish the things that they can not, or to find others to assist with agenda items allowing the delegation leader to handle more responsibilities. Delegation leaders are good for (in no particular order, though a * indicates a stronger affinity with that activity):

• CEO*
• CFO*
• Logistics
• Command
• Mining
• Manufacturing and Trade
• Any

Conclusion
Not all leaders fall into precisely these definitions, indeed most will probably display traits of two or more of these stereotypes. This is a good thing, because it means they can handle things in different ways and often more than one thing. By being versatile a leader who fits into more than one of the stereotypes can help your corporation grow in more and better ways.

All great leaders in history have had their lieutenants, who themselves were leaders. They may not have gotten the glory as much as those on top of the pyramid, but none of those top leaders would be where they were without those sub-leaders. Best of luck in building your empire!

Tags: ceo, cfo, leader, leadership, security