Team Lead Tips

The Team Lead Role

The team leader is responsible for mission planning, execution, and squad cohesion. They provide strategic direction, ensuring the team moves efficiently toward objectives while maintaining security and tactical advantage. The leader assigns roles, manages communication, and makes real-time decisions based on situational awareness.

They coordinate, synchronize firepower, and adapt to changing battlefield conditions. Ultimately, a team lead's role is to lead by example, uphold morale, and ensure mission success by keeping the squad organized, disciplined, and effective in all conditions. The team lead calls the shots but actively considers and values input from teammates. They balance authority with collaboration, ensuring the team's insights contribute to well-informed choices. They also ensure proper delegation, fully trusting their team once all preparations are in place.

How to Be a Good Team Lead

• Operation Briefing – Read the content carefully and ensure everyone understands the mission they are about to execute.
• Role Assignment – Assign roles based on objectives and terrain, making full use of the operators and leaving nothing to chance.
• Mission Phases – Execute each main phase with precision, directing the team clearly and ensuring that everyone understands their specific role at all times. The main phases are:
  • Infiltration
  • Recon (H.E.A.T. – Hostiles, Entries and Exits, Areas of Interest, Targets of Interest)
  • Planning (P.A.C.E – Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency plans)
  • Execution
  • Exfiltration

Key Qualities for Success

• Tactical Awareness & Communication – Assess the battlefield, make clear decisions, give precise commands, and maintain radio discipline. Use the P.A.C.E. system post-recon to prepare for execution.
• Leadership & Team Management – Lead by example, foster teamwork, and delegate tasks effectively. Stay calm under pressure. While the Team Lead is ultimately responsible for mission planning and overall success, a good Team Lead will always rely on their teammates for additional input—sharing responsibilities with the 2IC (such as exfil helo coordination, roleplay, and immersion) and seeking insight on tactical options.
• Tactical Knowledge – Use safe, proven, efficient tactics, ambushes, diversions, and all available tools to ensure mission success.
• Adaptability & Problem-Solving – Adjust tactics, utilize terrain and resources, and remain flexible when the situation shifts. A good team lead quickly resolves sudden problems with creative thinking and reassures their team with confident, easy-to-apply solutions. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
• After-Action Review (AAR) and Mindset – Provide constructive feedback, highlight strengths, appreciate everyone's time commitment, and encourage continuous improvement. Leadership is more than just making decisions. One of the biggest lessons learned through experience is that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Don’t let the fear of making a mistake stop you from trying to solve a problem. It’s okay if an action turns out to be wrong or if your solution doesn’t work out. There’s no mistake you can’t recover from—or, more importantly, learn from. This is especially true when you have good teammates by your side.

Key Points to AVOID as a Team Lead (Examples of Poor Leadership)

• Blaming teammates for failures instead of taking responsibility and learning from mistakes; being arrogant and ruining morale.
• Giving unclear, ambiguous, or impractical instructions that lack tactical viability and are difficult to execute.
• Constantly reversing decisions and changing plans unpredictably, leading to unstable leadership.
• Failing to leverage individual strengths and not delegating effectively, taking on too much instead of trusting the team.
• Losing composure in high-pressure situations, such as compromises or unexpected encounters.
• Making reckless decisions that endanger the team’s safety under stress.
• Ignoring or dismissing teammate input when planning or reacting to situations.
• Being inefficient—dragging out movement and planning phases, wasting valuable mission time and teammates’ real-life time commitment.
• Overloading comms with unnecessary chatter, using long-winded explanations instead of concise, clear communication (aim for the smallest amount of words possible per concept).
• Failing to respond quickly to teammates' questions, causing confusion and delays.

Final Thoughts

No one is perfect, so just do your best when leading operations! Also, not everyone needs to be a team lead—some prefer to play as the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th operator, and that’s perfectly fine. Variety strengthens the team. However, we should all be ready to step up as a team lead when the situation calls for it. Please don't be the person who waits around in the server doing nothing, just because no one is leading them. By supporting each other with positivity and strong leadership, we create a great experience for everyone.

Go ahead and take the initiative to lead an operation because: YOU GOT THIS!