I started playing PlanetSide 2 again last night and ended up playing for about 4 hours. It was cool playing with the TacticalGamer platoon which was well-organized. However, there were a few issues that bugged me. I’m not sure if it was the leadership, but we were outflanked at some point, and our platoon wasn’t able to bring in the heavy guns necessary to hold a position…we couldn’t even reduce an armor column that was headed our way by even 2 or 3 tanks! Maybe it was the lack of discipline on the part of some squad members (myself included at different points in the game while I was eating 
).
I read up on the TacticalGamer forum for PS2 that they want to be more mature players and so I searched around and found a US Army Field Manual on leadership.
Influence Techniques
It has a great list of influence techniques that would benefit platoon and squad leaders in the game and would also benefit managers or team leaders in office settings:
- Pressure
- Legitimate requests
- Exchange
- Personal appeals
- Collaboration
- Rational persuasion
- Apprising
- Inspiration
- Participation
- Relationship Building
Pressure
Some good ideas on applying pressure,
Pressure is applied when leaders use explicit demands to achieve compliance, such as establishing task completion deadlines with negative consequences imposed for unmet completion. Indirect pressure includes persistent reminders of the request and frequent checking. This technique should be used infrequently since it tends to trigger resentment from followers, especially if the leader-exerted pressure becomes too severe. When followers perceive that pressures are not mission related but originate from their leader’s attempt to please superiors for personal recognition, resentment can quickly undermine an organization’s morale, cohesion, and quality of performance. Pressure is a good choice when the stakes are high, time is short, and previous attempts at achieving commitment have not been successful
Apprising
I hadn’t heard of the term “apprising” before,
Apprising happens when the leader explains why a request will benefit a follower, such as giving them greater satisfaction in their work or performing a task a certain way that will save half the time. In contrast to the exchange technique, the benefits are out of the control of the leader.
Participation and Inspiration
In the game, I think the inspiration technique could be used because it’s awesome to have others around you working towards getting more experience points, unlocking better weapons and being the one squad or platoon that turned the tide of the current battle or capturing a major position.
The participation technique is difficult to apply to the game when you have all sorts of random people joining up in the platoon/squad. If you have a dedicated team, it can be applied outside of the game,
Participation occurs when the leader asks a follower to take part in planning how to address a problem or meet an objective. Active participation leads to an increased sense of worth and recognition. It provides value to the effort and builds commitment to execute the commitment.
Other Leadership Training Material
They also cover other things such as:
- creating a positive environment
- developing others
- providing direction, guidance and priorities in order to accomplish a mission
You can download the full PDF of their guide here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm6-22.pdf
