Leadership Logic

Warbirds Presents - Leadership Logic

By W1nd. Taken from the forums on 12-12-2020: http://forums.utopia-game.com/showthread.php?640070-Warbirds-Presents-Leadership-Logic

What about these 10 laws of effective leadership and 6 eternal principles of the constitution I hear about?

Well, I will start with the nuts and bolts, because I really enjoy talking about our kingdom's constitutional structure. Our kingdom has functioned as an elective monarchy since the end of our second age. At the end of every age our kingdom votes on goals and direction for the next age. Things like level of competitiveness and level of activity expected from players, criteria for recruitment, age goal, kd name, and theme for the age are decided by straw polls and secret ballot.

Once our age goals are decided upon, we hold a formal election to select a monarch for the next age. The only stipulation is that whoever is elected must accept the goals and direction that the kd chose for the coming age, and cannot try to change them or the constitutional nature of the kingdom. A Returning Officer is selected from the pool of original kd members, and they are entrusted with handling the nomination and selection process and ensuring a fair result of the vote.

Once a monarch is elected, the constitution stipulates that they must appoint a war leader to lead the kingdom, and a council of advisors to support the war leader. Once the war leader is appointed, the show is theirs to run however they deem appropriate. The monarch can change war leaders mid-age if they want, but not during a war in progress, and the monarch has no power to overrule or interfere with a war leader's conduct of a war.

The elected monarch has final say on withdrawing from war, recruitment, and removing players, or selecting people for leadership, but it is the war leader who is at the top of the org chart for most in-game decisions. So in some sense you could say that the kingdom runs on a consular system with two leaders; one civilian, and one military. In that sense the constitution is a formal description of the system that Smiles and I designed for ourselves out of necessity that first age. It worked well, so we made it official.

In practice, our core leadership has not changed much in 5 ages. Smiles and I have served as war leader and monarch respectively every age since our kingdom's foundation, though we do rotate people through council as often as we can to give people experience of war planning and wave leading. In the last three ages we have brought in some tremendously experienced and capable people from other kingdoms, and this expanded leadership capacity has added tremendously to our success. It also gives me great hope for the future of our constitutional experiment.

As for RedBird's ten laws of leadership, well, these are just the rules I expect my leadership team to lead and play by:

1. No topic of discussion is off limits in leadership council, and everyone has an equal voice there.

2. Morale is everything, and no negativity, complaining, or defeatist talk is permitted outside of council.

3. We reward initiative and encourage risk taking.

4. Everyone deserves a second chance. Most people deserve a third chance. Some people deserve a fourth chance.

5. We review personnel after every war and we are always looking for ways to make our kingdom stronger, and support players who are struggling.

6. We offer praise for positive actions, and gentle correction for mistakes. We always address the members of our kd using terms of affection and respect.

7. We always put the needs of the KD ahead of our own provinces.

8. We are decisive in giving orders and we do not argue or plead.

9. Life is more important than utopia.

10. Don't be a martyr: set a sitter and get some sleep.

Thank you Redbird and Thank you Warbirds for being part of the community! You have a very unique kingdom structure and a nice piece of history for anyone who many have missed the early 80’s. It also serves as a very inspirational story on building a kingdom from the ground up and how you overcame struggles you faced in order to maintain a presence in the war charts age over age.

I would like to thank Smiles for constantly commenting and participating in the MUGA chat especially when I mention him as he has been very transparent about sharing information and data. Thank you Smiles for your contribution!