I lead two gaming clans during my nine years of playing a MUD. I was only seventeen when I created my first clan, and I was twenty two when I created my second. Notably: by the time I created my second clan, I was in RMT (retail management training) with Starbucks, something I *directly* link to my time spent learning how to lead and manage people in-game. It wasn't the only reason I became a manager, but it did give me the skills in order to even consider it and be considered for it. By the time I was 23, I was managing my own Starbucks store.Here are the things I learned, beginning from age 17:Recruiting - because I started both my clans, rather than taking over or moving up the ranks in one, I learned straight off the bat about recruiting. I learned about having a group of founding members to fill core roles and senior positions in game and how important that was to early and lasting success. I also learned how to cold recruit in game, both by approaching members of other guilds (this was super useful later when I needed to recruit management team leaders to my stores) and by approaching un-guilded "newbies" (which I'd liken to hiring young first-job seekers and also attending hiring fairs at colleges for those new to the workforce).Equity, Investors, and their importance - Starting a clan cost gold - a whole lot of it. I *could* have waited to front it all myself, but it'd have taken longer and also left me high and dry. Instead, I got investors. Some of them would also become founding members - notably, my coleader and other high ranking (in-game, there were the Prince/Princess - Leader and Coleader, then lower "rankings" starting with Duchess/Duke, Marquise/Marquesse, etc) players. They "bought" their rank both with gold to create the clan and with loyalty and ownership in helping recruit and run the day to day activities necessary to be successful. Other "investors" were friends in game who were dedicated to their own guilds or power clans, but would help us out in exchange for ... in some cases, alliances with our clan, in others, promises of the unique "clan item" we could create. Specialized Roles vs General Expertise - as guild leader, I had to have some knowledge of each area of importance in-game*. However, I couldn't be best at everything. So I made sure my founding members complemented each other. We had specialties that we were all responsible for leading in-clan and tracking. Succession planning - and the importance of creating a 'bench' for replacing key players as their life cycle in-game or in-clan came to ends. Players might leave for any number of reasons - "real life" pursuits, moving on to new game, in-game issues (personality clashes, flounces, or just to join a power clan), etc. Having a replacement plan was key. For higher roles that were less likely to have turnover (like, myself and my coleader), we'd keep a one-deep bench (coleader would replace me when I "retired" for awhile, then someone would fill coleader role, etc). But for lower roles that might turnover more quickly/with less warning, we'd keep at least two in mind. Democracy doesn't work - at first, we tried to hold coleader elections to let the clan decide who should lead with me. That didn't work. It turns out that interviewing is key, but in the end, the leader needs to pick who leads, both because the leader knows what will work best with her AND because in the end, the fallout is the leader's to deal with if things go wrong. And popular does not equal best. It's best if the leader can be best AND make himself/herself popular, but it's never going to be maintained. Leaders have to make decisions that are going to piss off one or all parties involved sometimes. There are a lot of factors you need to consider when choosing your leaders in-clan (and in-company), but voting for the best fit isn't one of them.Good leaders create buy-in - and buy-in is so crucial to a clan or company's success. If your members/employees have reasons to personally want the success of both the clan/company AND you as a leader/them as a team, you're going to make it way farther than a team that's just doing it because. Finding that personal buy-in is important. In clan, it might be someone wanting to climb the clan's leadership ladder, it might be personal gain/wealth, it might be trying to climb the game's leaderboard, who knows. Figuring out what motivates your team members means you can use that to drive results for the team. And if you can create enough rapport that they personally have buy-in to trust you as a leader and want to help you out, you'll find it hard to fail.We VS I - Good leaders personally own failure. The pronoun used to discuss failures or misses is I. Good leaders team-own success. The pronoun used to discuss wins is We. Period. Competition - is good. It drives you to become better. It keeps you from becoming complacent. It makes the wins sweeter and the losses productive - by giving you learnings from the loss and from how they did it better.Conflict & Personality Management - When you're a seventeen year old girl playing a text-based game with a population that is in the majority older than you and male, you learn quickly (or you quit) how to navigate this with finesse, tact, diplomacy, and a realllllly healthy dose of manipulation. Good managers manipulate. You might have to pull rank now and again to settle something fast and hard. But hopefully you won't have to too much, because you'll use your manipulation skills to maneuver people into doing what you want ... and believe they chose it. You offer choices, but ensure both ways are something you want/could use. You use your own arsenal of flattery, humility, empathy, insight, knowledge, and people skills to get what the team and clan need with minimal upset. You learn how to cause fewer ripples. How to soothe egos before they even realize they're ruffled. How to rearrange people so they both feel like they won - or at least that no one lost. How to deal with each person on the team in a way that will get the best results.You learn your leadership voice - and when and how to use it. In my clan, I used clan meetings, clan notes (posted on a clan board), personal notes/letters to each player now and then, and leadership team meetings. In my store teams, I used ... store meetings, store notes (posted on our bulletin board), personal notes/cards to each employee, and leadership team meetings. I used one on ones in both areas. In clan, I had one on ones to review performance for my leaders or would-be leaders. In store, I had one on ones to review performance for my leaders or would-be leaders. I also made sure to be open to feedback on my own performance in every possible way - during one on ones, via email/message, or through the chain of command.Firing / removing from guild - You learn how you're going to set your rules. You figure out what sort of consequences there are. You figure out your system - warnings, demotions, etc. It's the rudimentary performance improvement plans, minus the paperwork and threat of lawsuit. But you learn what kind of backlash you face by *not* enforcing standards and rules uniformly or by jumping the gun. You learn about the consequences of disciplining or removing someone because of your *own* personal feelings or a dispute. I'd never have been able to carry out my first PIPs on employees and my first "letting go" of one of my employees if I hadn't had some practice in-game first. As it was, I was still shaky after.**I thought of a few more.Incentives - can be really useful, if not over-used. If we needed more money in our bank account, we'd do trade run races where one senior leader would lead a group vs another leader with a group, always donating a percentage of the take to the clan account (clan tax) after. Or if we were trying to take over the leaderboard in one category, we'd offer prizes for the members who could drive the most results in X period of time. As a manager, sometimes we would run incentives in-store for prizes, and sometimes the brand would run incentives to drive results. Utilizing incentives not just with company-directive but at a store level helped drive results in times when we might have needed the extra push.Networking was crucial - in terms of other clans and their leaders, having good relationships with them was crucial for game advancement. For one thing, if we were doing a particularly tough run or dungeon and didn't have the numbers, we'd call on an allied clan for players to help out. Also, knowing other leaders helped when we needed recruits - oftentimes other leaders would direct people to us if they were full-up or didn't quite suit their clan's profile. And we'd do the same. Plus, having good relationships gave us insurance that we wouldn't be wiped in dungeons by those clans we were friendly with. Plus, we exchanged information - tips on beating certain quests, warnings about other clans hiding trying to jump people in certain zones, etc. As a manager, networking was super important. Other store managers could help with putting out the word for recruiting, could refer candidates to each other as needed (if we needed a manager and their bench was full up, etc), and also help with awareness in times of trouble, too (for example when there was a particular individual harassing stores, if he appeared in one, there'd be some phone tag to warn others that he was around, etc). Catching people doing things right - and recognizing them on the spot helped drive those behaviors. This was useful not just as a clanleader and manager, but I sure do employ this now with kids and husband. I would never include my six years of in-game "management" of a clan or even the seven years I spent as an admin/developer in-game on a resume. But I absolutely use every skill I learned in those roles in my jobs in management (and customer service). And I absolutely will speak to them in interviews as applicable. *(if you're curious, this involved "trade runs" where you'd take a load of goods from one trade post to another, to sell at (hopefully) a profit, provided others hadn't hit first and lowered the price, "catacombs runs" where you'd travel dangerous caverns to collect eggs used for training skills, zone runs into dangerous areas leading text-based versions of "raids", sometimes utilizing multiple groups to complete the zone for equipment rewards, and pk/cpk - player kill and chaotic player kill, where you'd fight other players either to keep them out of your zone or to kill them and steal their equipment)