Or at least so it seems.
Okay, so playing Final Fantasy XI, I joined what became known as the CoP (Chains of Promathia) Super Set. A set party is a group of people who work together towards a goal, such as finishing missions, or getting levels. Well the Super Set was more than a party worth of people (6 in FFXI's case), who work together to get through the CoP missions. While it wasn't intended to be, it was an experiment to see if this setup could work. While I didn't start out as the leader, the old leader got burnt out on FFXI in general, and ended up breaking away from the game as a whole. So after about 2 months of inactivity we got together and said someone had to lead. No one stepped forward so after a week I just took over. Anyway, the results of the experiment was that about 4-5 people ended up carrying the other 9-13 through constant redos of missions. Not fun, as FFXI has XP loss on deaths, not to mention the lost value of materials, so making upwards of 6 to 7 runs on a single fight to get everyone through is nothing short of maddening. The end result was I became the leader of one normal sized set (6 people).
One of the additional effects of the CoP Super Set was I started leveling Paladin (PLD). In FFXI, PLDs are the definitive tanks, they do little damage, but wear heavy armor and take hits in the face like they are being hit by a feather pillow. Well, a few others in my CoP set needed to level jobs to be able to be complete CoP (need to be at 70-75 range for the final few missions). So the three of us along with three others got together and formed a set party. At first I was referred to as "our mighty leader" and given the leadership position in our set. At this point I was already busy leading the two other CoP Super Set groups (it hadn't collapsed into 1 normal group yet), so I asked why I was the leader, and pretty much told them I had no interest in leading, and someone else took over. Point still stands that they assumed I'd be the leader.
Finally we come to the most recent thing. I play WoW, and a group of people in my guild and I started off questing together in Nagrand. This originally began as they were questing in Nagrand and I hadn't completed the quests there, so I joined them. If nothing else I just wanted to avoid the pain of having to solo my way through the Hemit Nesingwary quest lines. Kill 30 mobs x 9? No thanks. So we started working together to do all the quests for the zone. Later on one of the members husband joined us. Also, we later in an unrelated situation joined up to do a Sethekk Halls run. Group composition is pretty good: (Balance) Druid, Mage(me), (Prot) Paladin, (Holy) Priest, and Warlock. So we're about to start doing Nagrand questing again tonight, and I had one of the members make a post about it as a reminder on the forums. What did he title it? "Kaz and Crew Nagrand Expedition". I kid you not. Kaz and Crew. So apparently I'm the leader of this little group as well.
Now, originally I was going end this post with something along the lines of "Apparently all it takes to be a leader is... doing anything." but before I could finish this post I got called away to do some real work. So while working I talked to my superior, and mentioned all this, and asked him what he thought defined a leader.
Now, a little background on this guy: he was in the army and made it to the rank of Master Sergeant or E-8. The rank scale for enlisted soldiers goes from E-1 (Private) all the way to E-9 Sergeant Major (with various lateral promotions). At and after the rank of E-5 or Sergeant you have to in a managerial position. It's just the way the Army works. So basically he had upward of 10 to 15 years of being a leader of soldiers. Anyway, his reply was "A leader will look out for his subordinates, and makes sure they doing their duties."
Now for a little more background, this time on myself. I'm also ex-Army. I didn't get as high as my superior, was only in for four years, but at various points I was in charge of others, and for six months I held the highest rank of the lower enlisted in my section (before I transferred to another unit) so in a form of training for the potential of being in a managerial position, I was made manager of two others, so I have some real experience in being a leader.
Anyway, back to the present, after hearing my superior describe his opinion of what makes a leader, I realized that this stuff I was doing, almost automatically. In my mind it wasn't "being a leader" it was "being a good member of a team", though apparently it paints me into the position of being a leader... Well, it could be worse. At least I'm fairly intelligent and can get things done. *toots own horn*
Okay, so playing Final Fantasy XI, I joined what became known as the CoP (Chains of Promathia) Super Set. A set party is a group of people who work together towards a goal, such as finishing missions, or getting levels. Well the Super Set was more than a party worth of people (6 in FFXI's case), who work together to get through the CoP missions. While it wasn't intended to be, it was an experiment to see if this setup could work. While I didn't start out as the leader, the old leader got burnt out on FFXI in general, and ended up breaking away from the game as a whole. So after about 2 months of inactivity we got together and said someone had to lead. No one stepped forward so after a week I just took over. Anyway, the results of the experiment was that about 4-5 people ended up carrying the other 9-13 through constant redos of missions. Not fun, as FFXI has XP loss on deaths, not to mention the lost value of materials, so making upwards of 6 to 7 runs on a single fight to get everyone through is nothing short of maddening. The end result was I became the leader of one normal sized set (6 people).
One of the additional effects of the CoP Super Set was I started leveling Paladin (PLD). In FFXI, PLDs are the definitive tanks, they do little damage, but wear heavy armor and take hits in the face like they are being hit by a feather pillow. Well, a few others in my CoP set needed to level jobs to be able to be complete CoP (need to be at 70-75 range for the final few missions). So the three of us along with three others got together and formed a set party. At first I was referred to as "our mighty leader" and given the leadership position in our set. At this point I was already busy leading the two other CoP Super Set groups (it hadn't collapsed into 1 normal group yet), so I asked why I was the leader, and pretty much told them I had no interest in leading, and someone else took over. Point still stands that they assumed I'd be the leader.
Finally we come to the most recent thing. I play WoW, and a group of people in my guild and I started off questing together in Nagrand. This originally began as they were questing in Nagrand and I hadn't completed the quests there, so I joined them. If nothing else I just wanted to avoid the pain of having to solo my way through the Hemit Nesingwary quest lines. Kill 30 mobs x 9? No thanks. So we started working together to do all the quests for the zone. Later on one of the members husband joined us. Also, we later in an unrelated situation joined up to do a Sethekk Halls run. Group composition is pretty good: (Balance) Druid, Mage(me), (Prot) Paladin, (Holy) Priest, and Warlock. So we're about to start doing Nagrand questing again tonight, and I had one of the members make a post about it as a reminder on the forums. What did he title it? "Kaz and Crew Nagrand Expedition". I kid you not. Kaz and Crew. So apparently I'm the leader of this little group as well.
Now, originally I was going end this post with something along the lines of "Apparently all it takes to be a leader is... doing anything." but before I could finish this post I got called away to do some real work. So while working I talked to my superior, and mentioned all this, and asked him what he thought defined a leader.
Now, a little background on this guy: he was in the army and made it to the rank of Master Sergeant or E-8. The rank scale for enlisted soldiers goes from E-1 (Private) all the way to E-9 Sergeant Major (with various lateral promotions). At and after the rank of E-5 or Sergeant you have to in a managerial position. It's just the way the Army works. So basically he had upward of 10 to 15 years of being a leader of soldiers. Anyway, his reply was "A leader will look out for his subordinates, and makes sure they doing their duties."
Now for a little more background, this time on myself. I'm also ex-Army. I didn't get as high as my superior, was only in for four years, but at various points I was in charge of others, and for six months I held the highest rank of the lower enlisted in my section (before I transferred to another unit) so in a form of training for the potential of being in a managerial position, I was made manager of two others, so I have some real experience in being a leader.
Anyway, back to the present, after hearing my superior describe his opinion of what makes a leader, I realized that this stuff I was doing, almost automatically. In my mind it wasn't "being a leader" it was "being a good member of a team", though apparently it paints me into the position of being a leader... Well, it could be worse. At least I'm fairly intelligent and can get things done. *toots own horn*
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