This document discusses leadership skills in online gaming and compares them to business leadership. It analyzes skills like recruiting, motivating teams, and assessing performance in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. While gaming has lower stakes, it encourages risk-taking and learning from failures. The document suggests businesses could benefit by adopting temporary leadership roles, fostering risk tolerance, emphasizing teamwork, providing transparent reward systems, and giving employees real-time performance data and decision-making tools. Overall, it argues business can improve leadership by adapting successful aspects of online gaming environments.

1. Leadership’s Online Labs
Charmain Tan | Dongjie Lin | Fehd Trimech | Vaibhav Sathe

2. Agenda
 Massively Multiplayer online role playing game
 Gameplay of World of Warcraft
 Leadership skills evaluated
 Game play vs. Business world
 Personal Aspects
 Managerial Implications

3. MMORPG
 Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
 Very large number of players interact in a
virtual gameplay scenario assuming a particular
character
 World of Warcraft is most subscribed MMORPG with
10.2 million with approx. $12-15/month subscription fees
 Released in 2004, 4 Expansions so far
 Competitive and Goal Oriented environment
 Real time strategy game, players have goals to
accomplish based on resources, most tasks require
group formation, sharing/trading of resources possible
 High black market (Real World) exists for well equipped
accounts, trading as high as $9000
Trailer video

4. World of Warcraft – Game play
 Player vs. Player or Player vs. Environment
 Subscribers need to join one realm or server which
is one instance of gameplay
 Characters belong to races – Orcs, Humans,
Dwarves
 Players of same faction (alliance) can communicate
each other through messages or groups
 Participation of dozens of players coordinating with
each other in quests for several hours
 Over period of time characters mature and acquire
skills
 Quest completion provides further experience points,
items and in-game money

5. Leadership Skills Evaluated
Works well Doesn’t match
• Face organizational and • No real evaluation of “high
strategic challenges like potential” as one needs to
recruiting, retaining, assessing, achieve level to see great
motivating, rewarding, etc. players in action
• More challenging in some terms • No tangible stakes involved,
due to volunteer workforce and increases risk taking
digital medium of • Problems are well articulated
communication and not discovered
• Dynamic leadership, leaders • Identities adapted to gameplay,
change, new ones come reduces “conflicts”
forward

6. Two environments : Game world vs.
Business world
Similarities Differences
• Motivation and incentives. • Stakes in games are lower
Important motivational than in business world.
challenges (incentive Players aim to achieve goals
mechanisms that reward the strictly defined by the game
individual performance of rules.
players / employers). The • Players have avatars
incentives can be either whereas employees involve
short-term (and immediate) or their real personality.
long-term.
• Speed : things go faster in
• Distribution of the loot that a games.
team accumulates during a
• Risk taking is encourages in
successful raid / Distributing games but a dangerous in
end-of-year bonus to
business.
employers. Making a strong
connection between effort • The role of leadership is often
and reward. temporary. The leader
changes if the mission needs
specific skills.

7. Two environments : Game world vs.
Business world
Similarities Differences
• Transparency of • Transparency of information.
information. Chosing a Detailed statistics on individual
strategy in the heat of the and group performance, real-time
action on the basis on the status reports on performance.
updated data. • Lack of data makes the leader
ignoring real skills of employers.
• Managing like a meritocracy : • Rotation of leadership. Availability
people are rewarded for their of data keep players always
performance. ready to assume the leadership if
• Most real-world companies needed.
are already working on • Detailed data about players,
capturing and integrating real- constantly and automatically
time about people, activities updated / static employee files
and results. with snapshots of someone’s past
experience and training.
• Failing and reattempting is a
learning experience in game
world / Reattempting is hard in
business world.

8. Leadership: personal aspects
 Some similarity and discrepancy among the leaders
in online games and real-world business.
Professional Game Real
Specialize Common
in: sense in
Ongoing business,
recruitment Know the
Creation of industry
incentive and
systems company
Player well
evaluation

9. Leadership: personal aspects

Speedy and Game Ultraquick Real
Efficient Considerat
decision e decision
making, making
Based on Sometimes
partial based on
information incomplete
information
Game Since Real
Risky failures is
acceptable Cautious,
, taking risk taking good
is care of risk
encourage
d

10. Leadership: personal aspects

Relationship Game Exceptional Real Respect &
skills relationship support
--> forming from
effective below,
teams, good
delegating working
responsibili atmospher
ty e
Communicatio Game Real
n

11. Managerial Implications: Management
Temporary leadership roles in gaming
• Frequent swapping of leadership position helps avoid
burnout
• No single leader expert in all areas. Better matches
individual expertise to tasks
• Empowers employees to take lead, unearthing overlooked
talent
Game risk taking in trial and error
• Organizations to foster a culture that tolerates failure
• Mimic game structures by breaking down big challenges
into smaller projects, thereby making risk more palatable
Gamers must cooperate to advance
• Encourage teamwork rather than individualistic work

12. Managerial Implications: Incentive systems
Immediacy of compensation in gaming
• Shorten lag time between successful outcomes and
monetary compensation
• Creates stronger connection between effort and reward
Players know their reward points in
advance
• Creating clear and communication on reward system
increases transparency and incentives
• Individual compensation based on objective performance
data is deemed as a fair and meritocratic reward system

13. Managerial Implications: Information
system
Visible real-time information
• Providing employees with better access to information and
tools to make their own decisions. Bottom-up instead of
top-down
• Dashboards should be accessible to all instead of being
located only in headquarters, access only by senior
executives
Speed-decision making in gaming
• Leaders to be reactive to new information
• Organizational culture that is flexible and responsive to
contingencies
Real-time player data
• Composite view of employee’s voluntary information about
the person’s informal skills and hobbies facilitates formation
of teams

14. Conclusion - Takeaway
 Leadership is not always about an individual’s innate
ability, but about the environment as well
 Business can learn to adopt online gaming
environments to improve leadership at work