Honesty had been reading his ancestors' notes containing information of past lives and past regimes. In reading these notes, some thoughts were starting to circulate in his head and he became very interested in the philosophy behind it. However, Honesty knows that not having a bigger discussion will only hinder his thoughts on the subject, as input is imperative to understand the nature of the subject. With that, Honesty decided to step up on a public platform in hopes the leaders and other influential mobsters, whether they have prominent bloodlines or not, may voice their opinions and views on the matter.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me preface the following discussion as I feel I must make a few things clear before continuing. It's important to note that this isn't targeting anyone in particular. Rather, it is meant to be a discussion, or even a debate, on types of personalities, behaviours, actions, etc., of types of leaders that have been in hopes we can better understand, for lack of a better expression, what is considered as a "desirable leadership" or, synonymous to it, "competent leadership". I hope that, with what follows, you will remember that what I will say is based on my ancestors' notes of past leaders. I will reward people who positively contribute to the following discussion. Now, let's get into the meat and potatoes and, hopefully, maple syrup.

Competence

What is a competent leader? Are we able to establish a quantifiable threshold of competence? If we are able to, is an objectifiable definition to a competent leader applicable or will personal motivations and personal ambitions disregard such objectivity? Before answering these last two questions, we must agree on what we consider as competency. This current discussion will focus on only the first question and the definition of a competent leader. Let's start with what I've pondered as being some, albeit not all, objective criteria if what makes a leader competent.

Objective Criteria

Activity: Clearly, someone deemed to be a leader must have an active presence. It mustn't be someone we forget exists. However, how do we deem who is an active leader? There are of course several factors when it comes to measuring activity. It can be measured by street presence, business presence, walking down IRC avenue, crew/district/city presence. It can also be measured through how many correspondences said leader has with various people, leaders or not and can also be measured by city hall's tracking of activity, ranging from obscenely low to insanely high activity. However, how do we grade these factors? Can we say that one is more important than another or that a subset of these factors is more important than other subsets? Let me elaborate: I believe my ancestors have been, and can be considered, active. However, my ancestors rarely speak in businesses and the streets, save for some few and rare occasions. However, this presence is counterbalanced by my ancestors' presence on IRC avenue, in their correspondences and their activity in their past crews and cities. I have classed as a subset of activity any street, business, IRC avenue and any other form of public interaction as public activity. All other forms of activity can be considered as private activity (mails, crew/district/city presence and other forms of activity that a general public can't see). Finally, the last subset of activity is what I call City Hall's activity radar (CHAR). Because CHAR encompasses most of the other two subclasses, this is the foremost measure of activity, with the other two being a more specific look into CHAR. This means that someone consistently low on CHAR can be ruled out as being an active leader, but this doesn't mean that someone consistently high on CHAR can be considered as "active" as a leader can just sit on their HQ's front porch and be considered active on the CHAR.

Leadership: To be a competent leader, you must have good leadership. A leader must be able to properly lead his flock in times of peace and war. They must also be able to lead their flock into being better mobsters. Now, leadership comes in different forms for city leaders, district leaders and crew leaders. We can also safely say that all city leaders must be good district leaders and all district leaders must be good crew leaders, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Let's call these three types of leaders as geographic leaders. Let's name some factors of leadership, while keeping in mind that these factors vary for the different geographic leaders, but remain as a factor for all geographic leaders. Again, let's create some subclasses of leadership. Conflict leadership is considered to be a leader's ability to guide their flock during conflicts, ranging from mobster disagreement to war times. Motivational leadership is considered to be a leader's capability in encouraging his flock to partake in street/business/IRC avenue and any other form of mobster activity, like drug dealing, helping train their sharpshooting abilities, creating competitions and more. Because motivational leadership is in constant need compared to conflict leadership, which is a periodic form of leadership, the former is more important than the latter. To further cement this fact, as long as a leader has good conflict leadership for their own crew, any upper structure part of the upper echelon of geographic leaders can take the role of leading wars and extra-city conflicts.

Loyalty: Loyalty is a key criterion for a competent leader. Loyalty comes in different forms. Unless given a valid reason to, a leader must be loyal to their crew, city, and their auths, if any. This criterion must be considered in a different manner compared to the two above. For example, while keeping in mind that rare valid reasons exist to break this loyalty, leaders must be loyal to the district and city head. A city head must be loyal to all the crews in their city, but crew leaders shouldn't necessarily be loyal to other crew leaders residing in a different district, but residing in the same city, as both were made leaders independently from one another. Examples of competent leaders regarding loyalty would be to look at past Godfathers that let their districts die or a chunk of their city die without retaliation. District leaders that let their auths die and city leaders that let their city's crews die in the name of power or for weak reasons are automatically incompetent leaders, even if other criteria are filled. For what is a leader if they're untrustworthy? What is a leader if they have a history of turning their backs on others? Let it be known that a bloodline's history is strongly and positively correlated with their progeny's decisions, especially when it comes to how they will view loyalty and how volatile their fight or flight reaction is.

Decency: Lastly, a competent leader must have a form of decency in them. We are mobsters, but not monsters. We kill, but we do not terrorize. Decency can be viewed as respect, but decency encompasses more than just respect. Here are criteria of decency: City Hall Interactions (CHI) is how leaders interact with the government. We are mobsters. What we do is highly dangerous, which means rules must be followed. City Hall let's us conduct our business as long as we comply to their rules. For if we do not, then we terrorize the common folk, potential mobsters and current mobsters and chaos ensues. Public Relations (PR) is how leaders conduct themselves in public. A competent leader must be respectful to other high-ranking mafiosi in businesses, the streets, etc. Threat Reaction Adequacy (TRA) is how adequate a leader's response to what they view as threats is. Bloodlining, purging, the frequency of warring, etc., all go into TRA. A leader that consistently kills out of paranoia is unfit to be a leader, for what is a leader if they have no one or little to lead? We have seen regimes that purge/bloodline before and we have seen how grotesque their actions are. Of these three subclasses, CHI is the most important as it encompasses PR and TRA.

My Views

Here is my personal view on competent leaders:

I define a competent leader as a leader that meets all four of these criteria. However, not all subclasses must be met to fulfill the criteria. For example, to be active, I believe a leader needs to have an adequate amount of public activity. I have voiced, as my ancestors have, that I dislike when leaders aren't known and don't put themselves out there. Of course, I'd rather have a leader with good private activity and good decency than someone with little decency and good public activity. Even though I believe all four criteria must be met somehow to be considered competent, I don't view all four criteria as being equal with one another. I believe decency is the most important factor in competent leaders, as it directly affects the quality of our lives and can set dangerous precedents and ways of conducts. It is also an important factor in the healthiness of regimes.

I believe to be considered active, you must have good CHAR and either good public activity or good private activity. I believe that to have good leadership, you must be a good motivational leader and to be a good city leader, you must be a good conflict leader. I believe that to be loyal, your bloodline must be seen as having a history of being loyal. For example, if an ancestor decided to rogue purely based on an emotional response or on a difference of opinion that can be worked out, then it heavily taints their progeny's loyalty to others. Lastly, I believe that to be considered decent, you must have good CHI and good PR and if you are a city head/district head, you must have good TRA.

Questions

And so, my fellow mafiosi, how do we incorporate all this and judge who is fit to be a leader? Are their other objective criteria that should be added? Do these criteria that I have brought forth need modification? Does a leader need to be competent in all four presented criteria to be considered competent? Is there a criterion or a subclass of a criterion that must be met to be considered competent?

Can an objective classification of competency be used to determine who should lead and who should not or will we always elect leaders purely based on our own personal views?

TL;DR

I like maple syrup and to be a competent leader, you must like maple syrup. Anyone that doesn't like maple syrup is objectifiably inferior.

Bricktop started reading the recently announced bulletin, fortunately the party included a handwritten copy of the persons's statements and perspectives, that had been posted to the streets' wallboard. It resembled that of one's ancestors' journal entries albeit this one had related questions being asked in the notated paragraphs which was unusual. 

Reglardess, after reviewing the post it was clearly a well-written memoradium regarding a particularly pertinent as well as significant topic on the shores. In Bacon's eyes, it was a seemingly important subject matter to be in question on the streets in the piggy's opinion.

The questions being posed, by a Mister -or- Miss "Honesty-", in the discussion started to revive in his piglet mind the old memories and stories he was told by his relatives growing up.

Bacon had remembered a family friend's pseudo-definition on topic. The friend's perspective was this, he believed to his core that the key point of being a leader means,  "being of service to others."

Bacon

Honesty saw a little pig oink up to him and thought he looked cute. The pig is very plump and delicious looking and Honesty was thinking about how the pig would taste, oinking as it was being glazed by some Hennessy barbecue sauce with a dash of maple syrup. Honesty quickly snapped out of it and came back to reality.

"Hello there, soon-to-be Bacon. I know a pig like you has trouble sniffing out a man from a woman, but even a pig like you must know how much manliness I exhume. It's a reason why Freyja is my wife. Now, as to what you brought forth, it is an interesting criterion, one I had not considered. However, what does being in service to others exactly entail? I will elaborate by giving you an example on of my ancestors went through. This particular Honesty had a crew in New York. He was the underboss to a Godfather in Brooklyn. One day, a very paranoid man of stature, another Godfather, asked Honesty to forcefully remove the guns of all his members as there was a rogue killing high-ranking mafiosi. This particular man was also a Godfather and was really not a decent man. Now, this man didn't just ask Honesty, he asked every crew leader to remove the guns of all their members. The way I see it is if Honesty did as he asked, he would've possibly been in service to this man. However, if Honesty didn't, he would've been in service to his crew, because he would've showed loyalty to the people that have been rocking with him for quite a while. Now, as you can tell, Honesty couldn't be of service to both his crew and this Godfather. The reason I am presenting this example is that, even though your criterion is a good one, it isn't specific enough, because you can't be of service to everyone. Leaders need to make hard decisions and can only service some people. Tell me, how would you regulate being of service to others? How do you set the line of when not to be of service to someone? How do you set the line when you have to choose who to be of service to?"

Your oath and duty to family in This Thing of Ours should always be one’s priority above all others in this life.

This includes leaders actively ensuring their soldiers’ safety at all costs. Furthermore, that being of service as a leader on these shores should also be associated with making an effort in building up your crew’s gangsters and establishing a level of rapport through regular communications.

Fundamentally, leaders should be trying to proactively develop each members’ skill set. By continually being of service to your fellow gangsters, leaders should have the aim of their soldiers being able, in time, to grow into becoming a knowledgeable, successful team of gangsters in our way of life on the streets.

Leaders being of service means setting the example and conducting yourself as a role model for others to follow. 

For further clarification on the matter per Honesty- request, that a leader’s primary focus is being that of service to your members. Specifically as a boss or high-level mafioso for an organization. Performed properly, you can start towards bringing out the best in people that they even didn’t know about or thought possible. And ultimately, each achieving a level of accomplishment through the course of their lifetime under your guidance and mentoring.

Honesty shed a single tear at Bacon's response.

That was... beautiful. Have you ever tried to become Shakespeare II? You would be fit for the role.

On a more serious note, I like the way you explained that a lot. I think this type of service would be part of the Motivational leadership subclass. Also, that type of service can bleed out into Loyalty in some cases.

I appreciate you coming forward, my fellow succulent pig. You've given me something to think about.