Project Reality Forums

What do you belive is the most important skill for a leader.

You only get to choose one skill.

Explain why that skill is the most important.

I believe it is charisma. Charisma is the power to convince people, and to be able to command you need to convince people to follow your lead firstly.

Knowledge.

knowledge is power

Invincibility

ok imma reprhase it, explain why you think this is important as a leader. not just... the skill.

The ability to know where and what they and their people should be doing at any time in order to best achieve victory for the team. This could mean in the bigger picture, ie which flag, it could mean which building to occupy in defense, where and how to engage the enemy, or even at the micro level of where each Squad Member should be placed during a firefight, and what they should be doing.

When to flank, when to rush, when to dig in, when to run away. Imma call it Tactical Awareness Its what separates the good from the great.

Adriaan wrote:I believe it is charisma. Charisma is the power to convince people, and to be able to command you need to convince people to follow your lead firstly.

Charisma is the power to convince people for non-verbal ways (or voice style), like... you know, some people prefer to follow people with better voices in PR for example.




For my skill choice, I'd say the ability of multi-tasking. I say this ability should never be necessary, but sometimes you have to, in PR:
-know where each of your squad members are doing (even as a SM);
-be able to have peripheral vision;
-be able to communicate as quick as a question;
-check the map very often and don't get into trouble...

you know.

Charisma. I would say intuition, but no matter how much intuition you may have, it doesn't matter if you can't control your team members weapons to act as your tools of destruction.

Charisma stuff. Be polite and cool so people see you as a nice guy.

BUT a good SL is useless with retarded SMs. SM needs intuition, not looking at the SL when sh*t needs to be done.

I had trouble leading 4 man squad, yet i had a 10 man squad under control with no problems because people knew automatically what to do at given moment, i just pointed out the people who i needed to do a specific task (flanking) and others were putting down supressive fire, without me saying :"You go there and shoot that guy, you go over there and shoot the other guy..."

Confidence in his abilities as a leader, especially when it comes down to decision making. You could tie this into charisma as well.

I could make very long speak about this thing. I have two fav squad leaders, which one of them I dont play anymore.
The first one was all about tactic, he knew even little details about moving, turning, covering even about good color background.

Second squad leader is not so tactical, but he knows how to command squad members and clearly tolds them what to do.

My opinion about most important SL skill is ordering your squad members. Becoase if you give them uncomplete instructions or say something unclearly they may not understand something and then they do something wrong.

Yeah, it's charisma. It keeps the squad's morale high and ensures great cooperation and teamwork. Basically, the more charismatic the leader is, the more fun it is to play under his command IMHO. The second most important skill would be multitasking, as goguapsy said.

You know, I believe charisma works up to a certain point. After that you'll need success. Or lol's.

Charisma is important at the very beginning of the game/round. Once you join a squad, you expect the squad leader to know what he/she is doing. If he talks friendly and humorous, yet still retaining his knowledge to navigate across the battlefield successfully, then you're going to have good experience in that round with that squad. When this happens, and I know some people who don't talk unless others talk, the squad leader will be able to put off some tension or shyness of other squad members. Everyone would start talking and such instead of being quiet unless they see contact.

But other than that, after a couple of minutes of game time, its whatever goes from there: tactics to knowledge, teamwork and communication. Charisma is the first impression that you must have in order to effectively rallying your squad. Second, I would have to say discipline and then tactical maneuvering (knowing where to place your squad members at to intercept the opponent in a firefight) during combat and fire base building.

What also makes a good squad leader is superior multi-tasking. Always keeping the steady flow of information from your squad to the rest of the team. Check your map frequently of where your friendly squads are and where they went down so you can try to engage the position from a different direction. Actively communicate with the team and the commander. Always update your marker and spot enemy units, don't forget about that!

Being serious all the time is a bad thing. I've seen this before in a couple of squad leaders where they get caught up in the action so well, that they tune everyone out and only listen to themselves. He/she ends up being a very annoying squad leader and the squad would always be broken up even with his discipline. You need to spike up the confidence of the squad first so it won't be a boring squad to tag along with.

And never argue with your squad members. This isn't cyber bullying 101. Having too much pride and cockiness will make some squad members nervous and angry if you reject their ideas in moving around. Always be friendly and caring.

But overall, I would have to say Tactical Awareness. Knowing your surroundings well will determine the outcome of everything else and trigger all of the following above.

Knowledge and superior gameplay.
The SL needs to know what is happening anywhere on the map. He needs to see where friendly squads died where the team needs reinforcements and where it is safe to go. Basically also what a CO would normally do due to the lack of real COs.

He also needs to be a rolemodel. He needs to show that it is ok to take a risk when it is, and needs to stay safe when it is too dangerous.
Basically people need to see how it is done and when it is done. Then the SMs eventually learn and do it on their own without the SL always repeating himself. (Like: Get the medic kit and revive XY, give covering fire...)

Charisma means nothing when the squad leader can't make a decision nor a good one at that. Even if I was the funniest dude in the world I wouldn't squad lead simply because I don't like wasting other peoples time when I don't need to.

By far the most important skill is the ability to micromanage. This means telling holding squad members hands when they need, calling in CAS and watching friendly squads movements on the map; all at the same time.

Down from looking in a certain direction to planning the fight from start to finish.

Most people tend to disagree with the premise that you have to micromanage your squad, but in PR noone can be trusted when they say 'I know what I'm doing.

dtacs wrote:Most people tend to disagree with the premise that you have to micromanage your squad, but in PR noone can be trusted when they say 'I know what I'm doing.

I wouldn't say that no one can be trusted, but as a SL you have a very tightly knit plan and a squad member says he'll do it. Strafes 5ft away from where you planned might mean your plan is lost. I'd just say "plan with a little deviation" so that people who "know what their doing" but are not smartasses (in the bad way) wouldn't ruin everything. I'd just trust people with good comms and that follow my orders. Comms don't necessarily mean mics, but it sure is helpful.

Patience.

The meaning of the word answers the other part of the question.

Its a difficult question, due to all those factors influencing the leader, however, initially I would say overview.

Since the game has a niche audience of (largely, I find) mature, military-savvy gamers, I find that most people will follow squad leaders for better or for worse in an effort to be as strong a pillar in the force hierarchy as possible (as a SM). i.e. if you obey an incompetent squad leader's orders to the best of your ability, at least the squad will be unified and likely more effective than an unresponsive, insubordinate squad with a competent leader, although some would argue that this makes the "competent" squad leader inherently incompetent due to his inability to control his troops. So in this sense, I think charisma is crucial to enjoying your time in a squad, but perhaps it is not more crucial than tactical and strategic skill to actually win the round.

Squad leading is something I've been dabbing around in a little lately, and I find my time is better spent making good tactical decisions that put our team and squad at an advantage, rather than in trying to seem like like a real awesome, fair, funny, up-standing guy.

Of course, I'm someone who gets rather easily flustered with intense micromanagement tbh, and perhaps being firm yet paternal and inspirational to my troops isn't something that has come naturally to me, so I try to keep my focus on the tactical side: making sure to maneuver in firefights, making sure my SMs assume good defensive positions, etc. And, what I consider more important (especially without a CO on the team), strategic awareness: checking the map frequently to sync your actions with the teams, and to discern where your squad will be most useful (not collect the most points), and plotting your next strategic movement. This is important to me because I've found that despite charisma, an indecisive/slow-to-act SL is a frustrating thing to deal with.

Also, it helps to have a Second-in-Command (2IC) type emerge in your squad, I do this frequently when playing as a SM as it helps take the tactical micromanagement off the shoulders of the SL so he can focus on more important things like coordination, CAS, strategic planning, etc.