Last year, I was on a certain panel along with a professor who was speaking about how the gaming culture was a training ground for the next generation business leaders. I remember being fascinated at the time by what he was saying and nodding my head as he quickly ran through business leadership skills that were needed to succeed in life, and illustrating how these skills were cultivated and formed through game playing.

Well, this topic is brought to mind again with another related study released by IBM and collaboration software maker Seriosity, in which they conclude that there is a significant parallel between leadership skills gained through playing MMORPGs and business leaders. What are the leadership skill-sets that gamers are utilizing in games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Final Fantasy XI, etc., which could translate to the business world, you ask? Skills such as collaboration, self-organization, influence, risk taking, openness, influence, and how to earn incentives are some of the strong points to top it off.

Seriosity also goes on to say that business should be adopting features of games themselves into their environments, in order to enhance productivity, innovation and leadership. Essentially, the structure of the games translate to a better business environment, so companies should be using incentive structures that motivate workers immediately and longer term (can anyone say DKP system?), virtual economies that create a marketplace for information and collaboration, transparency of performance and capabilities, recognition for achievements, and visibility into networks of communication across an organization.

Now, of course you should never take a study at face value - you really need to read one carefully and ask who is performing the study and what biases they would want to portray (i.e., a company that relies on gamers as part of their market). You should also see where it got its population, the questions it asks, and what types of influences might change the results. However, I won’t dissect this study and go through some of the points I felt where a little overzealous, as I happen to be a bit biased myself and support the fact that gamers can indeed develop business leadership skills through gaming. I support this because I know that I myself have gained valuable experience and skills by leading my own clan and guild, running my own raids, and organizing people to work together in teams to accomplish our goals.

But, I would like to point out, I don’t think just anyone can step up and instruct people on how to do their jobs and lead them to a successful encounter in a game, especially when I know exactly how hard it truly is.

I still believe there is an inherent trait in the personalities of those that make good leaders and while you may be able to be “taught” these skills and gain more experience in using them through gaming, that doesn’t necessarily mean just “anyone” can utilize these skills in the right way and succeed. In my opinion, you either got it or you don’t, but that is not to take away from a great opportunity for those that do have leadership potential to learn and be comfortable with leadership skills at a much earlier age and time then they would in the “real world.”

Does this mean you should be citing your gaming leadership skills on your resume? In all reality, you probably could and it would illustrate meaningful experience, but I doubt most “non-gamer” hiring managers would be quick to agree - I would wait a bit on that one. The acceptance that there is more than just fun and games here, along with the other stereotypes of this industry, is being challenged one baby step at a time.  So, give it a couple of years before you list off your raid leadership experience. Hopefully soon, those hundreds of hours of managing all those crazy gamers in all those instances and dungeons will actually earn you brownie points in the real world.

For the full details and information behind this study, you can download the .pdf and peruse at your leisure.