Being a Leader for HL
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First off, cheers to the holidays and a huge shoutout to anyone leading a team in HL!
From my two seasons of being a leader for Team Yeye, it has been extremely fun and rewarding. It isn’t always easy but I am very fortunate to have a very supportive team. I am writing this to share some of my insights of being a leader and hopefully this will be of use for new coming teams and leaders.
Team Chemistry
- One of the biggest thing I learned is that team chemistry is extremely important. Having players that enjoy and even look forward to playing together is what matters. It makes winning a bonus and makes losing a valuable lesson for the team’s growth
- When recruiting new players, it is more important to see if the player enjoys playing with your team and if your team enjoys playing with the player (it’s like a puzzle piece)
- Positive and good team chemistry makes coordination and comms effortless
Team Attitude
- As a team leader, you establish the team’s attitude towards the game. Set an environment where players want to improve their gameplay individually by regularly keeping in touch with your players (offer resources to help them grow/improve)
- It is crucial to encourage your players to participate in strategizing. Create an environment where your players can input their voices and communicate effectively together (listen and learn different perspectives)
- Whether you lose or win a scrim /match, it is always nice to discuss together what could have been done better and what the team did well in. There is always room for improvement and this is how your team adopt a winner mentality (notice the weakness and strengths of the team in different scenarios)
- Remember to be patient with each other as the same mistakes can be made multiple times (everyone learns at different speed, as long as they are trying thats what counts)
Team Goals
- Something I do for my team is that I would note 2-3 things I want our team to focus/work on and then evaluate how we did as a team
- Set short-term goals and long-term goals together as a team and encourage players to set their own mini-goals for their gameplay
Feel free to comment your own leading experience or even team experience
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@sakura Great post, and it shows one of the reason’s why Yeye climbed very fast and does well. I would add from my experience a long time ago that being a leader for Highlander is not the easiest thing in a world either, and a lot of people get surprised and end up throwing the towel in.
A list of some things
- You have to FIND and MANAGE a MINIMUM of 8 people. This doesn’t include your backups, ringers you know, etc. Then you have to do try outs with them, etc. Takes some time.
- You have to find 8+ people who can play at the same time as you! Now it seems people play during weekends and obviously Match day, but at the time when I played long time ago, many teams would practice immediately after match day on Tuesdays and have all different preferences.
- You need to find scrim partners who are RELIABLE. Some teams love baiting and it’s especially worse if you only scrim a few times a week.
- You need to be super organized I found. My friends list on Steam still has all my old lists of team leaders, ringers, etc. I love Discord now (which didn’t exist back then) being used since you can have channels for all different things. Mumble was meh. (Also the rename function on steam’s friends list is helpful to make notes since a lot of people like changing their name every so often)
- Learn to be a social-able person. Some leaders are just straight up dicks or they’re very quiet when it comes to things, etc. You’ll develop a good reputation among other leaders
- The above point leads into this one (which is a more fun point) but you can sort of have team leaders you are very good friends with which generally will lead into each other’s teams being good friends. My team was good friends with a team called USSR at the time and we would do things like Christmas events. Even though the season would be over we would load up Christmas maps and play highlander (badwater_snowy for ex). Sure the maps aren’t perfect but you can off class and just enjoy yourselves.
So yeah it’s a lot of work, don’t underestimate it. My very first team I lead I probably quit 3 weeks in. No shows, enemy teams wouldn’t show, toxicity, etc. I was ready later on once I understood what goes into it.
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@TheCoolest2 Thanks TC2 for the thoughtful reply! I definitely agree with your list of key things for leaders. It’s a lot of work and leaders do need to pay attention to multiple things and details. Possibly having co-leaders which breaks down the tasks and responsibilities may be more productive and better.
I also really admire players on Shootingstarz for having a really positive and friendly attitude towards other players and competitive gaming. Honestly one of my favourite teams