Reaction Paper

The exercise stated that I have a Democratic leadership style. I agree a

lot with what the results are, although in real life situations, sometimes you are

forced to have an authoritarian style for the best of the group. It is just the

nature of reality that not everyone that you will meet is competent and

knowledgeable on whatever activity you are leading your group in. An

authoritarian leadership style is required in these types of situations not because I

think lowly of people who are incompetent, but because I think some people

just need guidance in order to learn and reach their full potential. Though I feel

the most comfortable whenever I can establish a democratic style of leadership

since when everyone in your group is knowledgeable and competent, and you

guide them to the right path as a leader, will result in amazing outcomes. In our

times today, especially with how broadly different each systems work for each

fields of work, you can’t pick one leadership style and declare that as the be-all

and end-all solution for every group. Therefore, the best leadership style is

always different for each situation. Prior to this exercise, I’ve always made it a

conscious effort to have a democratic style of leadership because I used to only

have a authoritarian style of leadership. There are three key aspects on being a

good leader. Great people skills, a high level of confidence, and a high level of

competency and knowledge. I used to IGL (In-game Leader) for a professional

e-sport team that consisted of me and my friends that I met online. I would tell

them everything that they needed to do in-game and acted as some sort of

commander. Though I realized, a huge downside to this authoritarian style is

that I didn’t give my teammates the freedom and opportunity to flourish with

their own playstyles because I was limiting them with my clearly defined

commands. Although this helped with our in game uniformity, it decreased the

quality and effectiveness of the decisions we made. Why is that? Because as a

leader, I only possessed two of the characteristics you need to have: high

confidence, and a high level of competency and knowledge. I severely lacked

on the people skills department. Once I started giving the team more freedom

and started being open with what we should do in-game, we became much

more successful in our games and most importantly, we had a lot more fun.

Video game leadership is not that far off from leadership in a workplace. You

need to realize that, with how complex and in-depth things are in your field of

work, that you can’t make the best decision with only your input. Because one

man can’t learn all those intricacies all by himself. He/she needs the input of

other people who specializes in certain aspects of his/her industry, gather all the

information and suggestions up, and make a uniform and clear path for the

group.