Do you know too much for the author's own good?

[Jo Zebedee]

@Montero - agreed bad leaders everywhere. I have no problem with them in books. What I have a problem with is a good leader portrayed without any qualities to convince me (or indeed a bad leader with tons of qualities)

 

[Montero]

So a good leader - would you say the key is:
Knows what they are doing
Knows how to delegate
Knows how to pick good staff to delegate to - and then doesn't micromanage

With the optional extra of
Can be pleasant without being false and doesn't intimidate unintentionally?

Anything you'd add, or remove?

 

[Justin Swanton]

So a good leader - would you say the key is:
Knows what they are doing
Knows how to delegate
Knows how to pick good staff to delegate to - and then doesn't micromanage

With the optional extra of
Can be pleasant without being false and doesn't intimidate unintentionally?

Anything you'd add, or remove?

Inspire your subordinates with a confidence in your ability and command of the situation.
Inspire your subordinates with a sense that what they are doing is worthwhile.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@Montero Not quite. These are skills that can be taught and which fall under the managerial remit ( which isn't to say some people can't combine good leadership with managerial skills)

Knows what they are doing
Knows how to delegate
Knows how to pick good staff to delegate to - and then doesn't micromanage

Your final example comes closest as it is about behaviours.

The base line quality of any leader is an ability to communicate their vision and have people follow it. How they do that varies greatly across a range of styles ( Herschey-Blanchard situational leadership model states four, Lewin the classic 3 of autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire) which means that how they enact their leadership varies greatly.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Inspire your subordinates with a confidence in your ability and command of the situation.
Inspire your subordinates with a sense that what they are doing is worthwhile.

If you are a theory x leader you aim for the first, a theory y aims for the latter. It's the principle of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation that governs which approach.

For a transactional relationship it's the first - I know what I'm doing, do it and you'll get paid. For a transformational approach it's the latter.

 

[CWScott]

For me I'll immediately zero in on weapon info. I can usually spot if the author did their research by watching tv and movies.

If the story is good though, I'll gloss over most of it. I can't enjoy books anymore without shutting part of my brain off.

 

[Montero]

@ Jo - in response to your response to me (then saw your next post and annotated)

OK, thanks.
But
In a technical situation I would rate what I listed far above being able to communicate the vision.
Regarding people following in a work situation, well people (mostly) do that to keep their jobs .

Thinking in the wider arena of starting a new movement, then communicating a vision is key. But once the movement has started, and people have bought into the vision, it tends to have a lot of momentum of its own, even without an inspirational leader.

Maybe I'm thinking too much about great visionaries and you're not meaning quite what I'm meaning. (And I must admit I've just rattled off a quick answer because I was intrigued and haven't gone off and read all the models you've mentioned, though I will later.)

Annotate - so theory y is the transformational approach you get when you have an inspirational visionary?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@ Jo - in response to your response to me (then saw your next post and annotated)

OK, thanks.
But
In a technical situation I would rate what I listed far above being able to communicate the vision.
Regarding people following in a work situation, well people (mostly) do that to keep their jobs .

Thinking in the wider arena of starting a new movement, then communicating a vision is key. But once the movement has started, and people have bought into the vision, it tends to have a lot of momentum of its own, even without an inspirational leader.

Maybe I'm thinking too much about great visionaries and you're not meaning quite what I'm meaning. (And I must admit I've just rattled off a quick answer because I was intrigued and haven't gone off and read all the models you've mentioned, though I will later.)

Annotate - so theory y is the transformational approach you get when you have an inspirational visionary?

Of course the type of job role effects which leadership style but it also effects whether you want the leadership skills or managerial skills. Often, for something like the technical jobs you need effective management more than leadership skills - or, indeed, an autocratic leader who is very clear on what needs done when by whom.

Visionary leaders are pretty rare - but they tend to sit at the top of companies (or in flat organisations have a distinct sphere of influence) - and are not the everyday leaders we see in the workplace. So the tiers of leadership and the approach taken vary according to the job role, level of responsibility and task-importance.

Yes, theory-y is closer to the inspirational side of the spectrum. Also of interest is Steve Covey who has a great book on leadership - Principle centred leadership - and also a great book on management skills - the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (I think he's up to eight habits now).

So, absolutely, if someone responsible for a technical task at a low level management tier swanned in being all visionary I'd perhaps suggest they adapt their leadership style to suit the role - an ability all leaders need to learn to do.

 

[ErikB]

I kind of feel bad about saying this, but it is something I was going to write in your critique, but as you've made a thread... You say the planet in your story is the size of saturn, but must in turn be rocky. Saturn is over 750 times the size of earth. A rocky planet the size of saturn would have a gravity too great for the types of life you describe. I didn't post in critiques as it felt unfair to critique your post on physics and biology alone.

I don't mind people inventing technology and so on, even quite far fetched stuff. But we do need to apply physics to nature.

Just make the planet somewhat bigger than earth. You can do that, still have a big planet, and still make the local life as you describe.

Now, I will go and feel bad with a cup of coffee.

Actually Saturn is a gas giant and that said there is no restriction to the composition of the surface. But in order to generate the strong gravity needed in the story the rotational cycle is quite fast. I did my due diligence and homework before setting up the world I am writing about.

In fact I have a compendium of support statistics many of which are backed by research and science. I am also quite aware of the difference in size between Earth and Saturn.

There are gas giants and liquid covered worlds out there. The presence of soil and organic matter is very much a matter of biological processes and not just inherent geological composition of a planetary body.

The biology of a world is in fact its terraforming agent in far greater part than many people seem to realize. So the size point is rather immaterial if the gas exchange and topographical geography that is terraformed by life of the history of a world make the state of a planet viable for said organisms.



But I digress. Back to the thread at hand. LOL.

 

[Vertigo]

Actually Saturn is a gas giant and that said there is no restriction to the composition of the surface. But in order to generate the strong gravity needed in the story the rotational cycle is quite fast. I did my due diligence and homework before setting up the world I am writing about.

In fact I have a compendium of support statistics many of which are backed by research and science. I am also quite aware of the difference in size between Earth and Saturn.

There are gas giants and liquid covered worlds out there. The presence of soil and organic matter is very much a matter of biological processes and not just inherent geological composition of a planetary body.

The biology of a world is in fact its terraforming agent in far greater part than many people seem to realize. So the size point is rather immaterial if the gas exchange and topographical geography that is terraformed by life of the history of a world make the state of a planet viable for said organisms.

Gravity is as much a matter of the rotation of the planet as it is the material composition or size alone.



But I digress. Back to the thread at hand. LOL.

Um sorry you got me there????

As far as I'm aware gravity is defined by:

F = G * (m1 * m2)/(r * r)

No rotational component in there that I'm aware of?

An extreme rotational speed would create a centripetal force that might reduce the effect of gravity to some extent but it certainly isn't gravity. However if you had sufficient rotation to have such an effect then the effect would reduce to zero at the poles as the radius of the spin reduces to zero. Also worth noting that such a planet would also be very flattened.

Sorry I digressed as well.

 

[ErikB]

Um sorry you got me there????

As far as I'm aware gravity is defined by:

F = G * (m1 * m2)/(r * r)

No rotational component in there that I'm aware of?

An extreme rotational speed would create a centripetal force that might reduce the effect of gravity to some extent but it certainly isn't gravity. However if you had sufficient rotation to have such an effect then the effect would reduce to zero at the poles as the radius of the spin reduces to zero. Also worth noting that such a planet would also be very flattened.

Sorry I digressed as well.

Rotation does impact the inertia of a planets composition. If one increases speed of the planets rotation it impacts gravitational force quite strongly. So to do magnetic fields from other orbiting bodies such as moons and satellite bodies. Basic stuff.

You are correct. I am perhaps laboring the point backwards. Impact of faster rotation is a lighter gravity through centrifugal force. To define a basic gravitation of a world (or any other description for that matter) without taking into account other forces that reduce or increase gravitational pull is to state that only base gravity dictates how aa planetary body will be impacted in a set model.

One MUST consider all variables when measuring gravity. Thank you for making your points. Very well said! And helpful for what I am describing.

Cheers!

 

[ErikB]

Also the ability of a planet to produce orgamism able to grow and flourish in a heavy gravity world is very much contingent upon the composition of the atmosphere as well.

 

[Nick B]

I am, of course quite aware that saturn is a gas giant. And it still has immense gravity. If it was a rocky planet, that gravity would be far, far greater. Therefore, if life did exist, beyond bacteria, delicate plants and flying creatures simply would never evolve, they could not survive. If any complex organisms did evolve, they would need a huge power to weight ratio just to move.

 

[Vertigo]

Rotation does impact the inertia of a planets composition. If one increases speed of the planets rotation it impacts gravitational force quite strongly. So to do magnetic fields from other orbiting bodies such as moons and satellite bodies. Basic stuff.

I'm guessing here you mean moment of inertia and gravitational field.

Also for the moons to have a significant effect they would have to be of a comparable size to the planet. For example, whilst our moon can lift water a few feet I think you'd need an extremely sensitive set of scales to measure a difference in my weight depending on the current position of the moon. I imagine it might be noticeable on Pluto, as Charon mass is significant at 1/8th that of Pluto, but even then I'd need to figure out just how much the orbital distance would reduce the effect (ie. the distance of a body on the surface of Pluto from Charon's centre compared to the distance from Pluto's centre).

Back on thread, one that gets me is the amount of SF books that have weird and wonderful coloured skies (a topic discussed in considerable depth here on the Chrons a year or two back). It doesn't matter what 'colour' your star is (unless it isn't emitting any blue at all which is rather unlikely) your sky will always appear blue. The only exception might be a planet that always has loads of dust in the atmosphere.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I am, of course quite aware that saturn is a gas giant. And it still has immense gravity. If it was a rocky planet, that gravity would be far, far greater. Therefore, if life did exist, beyond bacteria, delicate plants and flying creatures simply would never evolve, they could not survive. If any complex organisms did evolve, they would need a huge power to weight ratio just to move.

Famously, Saturn is not a very dense world, on average, and thus it's gravity on it's 'surface' is actually very close to Earths. (However this is a bit misleading, as the Saturnic surface is really the edge of it's very large atmosphere...)

A quick calc shows that if Saturn was as dense as the earth, and we took Saturn's radius as the surface of this giant world, then the gravity that such a world would have is 9 times Earth g. Which I suppose theoretically ain't too bad. Life on such a world would just be have to be flatter, stouter and very strong!

However

In practical terms such a planet should really be, erm, a mega-Saturn and an even huger ball of gas really. The reason is that such a planet will attract and (more importantly) keep hydrogen and helium*. Hydrogen and helium are the most abundant elements in the universe and when a planet of this size was forming it should be hoovering up absolutely loads of the stuff and its gravity will be more than sufficient to keep hold of all of it.

Saturn itself is theorised to have a metallic hydrogen core (probably with the remnants of a large rocky core mashed up there!) and be very dense and compact in the centre - and this, I presume, currently keeps the very large hydrogen atmosphere together.

Therefore a rocky world that has a radius ~8 times the Earths should really be a super Gas giant (so it's atmosphere should go out considerably further!) - unless you have a mechanism for stripping off huge amounts of hydrogen atmosphere.**

After a quick perusal of other sources, given the above argument, it seems that the maximum size for a rocky world that might look a bit like Earth is something like 2-3 Earth radiuses.

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* Essentially on Earth, both Hydrogen and Helium gas molecules at ~293 deg K move faster than Earth's escape velocity - hence any such gas always eventually escapes into space.

** Actually, one wonders that if you started with a rocky core the size of Saturn in a solar system that is forming, that it might actually attract enough hydrogen in the planetary formation stage to actually initiate star formation???

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

I almost wrote a howler. I wanted to have an unusual planet, which one of the characters would name Klown Kar Planet in exasperation. Originally I was going to have the planet's rotation swing back and forth like a pendulum, i.e. makes 3/4 of a rotation, comes to a stop, rotates 3/4 of the way in the other direction...
It was based on a basic misunderstanding of how tidal forces work. After a discussion on the physics forum Physics Forums - The Fusion of Science and Community (a very good place for this type of research, BTW) I had to change the nature of KKP to something more astrophysically believable.

 

[Elventine]

So a good leader - would you say the key is:
Knows what they are doing
Knows how to delegate
Knows how to pick good staff to delegate to - and then doesn't micromanage

With the optional extra of
Can be pleasant without being false and doesn't intimidate unintentionally?

Anything you'd add, or remove?

A good leader should be like Phil Coulson!

 

[RX-79G]

If you took a rocky planet the size of Saturn and spun it fast enough to have earth gravity (at the equator) the planet would look a jelly donut. The poles would be enormous volcanoes and the whole structure unstable.

I really doubt such a planet would remain like that for long before it tore itself apart or internal forces slowed the rotation. I would also be very interested if such an ovoid planet has ever been seen in any solar system.

 

[Venusian Broon]

If you took a rocky planet the size of Saturn and spun it fast enough to have earth gravity (at the equator) the planet would look a jelly donut.

I'm more than inclined to agree with you (unless you make the planet out of unobtanium etc... ) but I ran the rough 'beermat' calculations* on it for the hell of it:

To get the force at the equator to be Earth-like, you need the planet to make one spin in 9 minutes.

Even to just skim 1g off the 9g equatorial gravity total still needs a very speedy ~25 min day!

I found this in my research: Mesklin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which is quite interesting, as this sort of giant planet spinning very fast has already been SF'd before. Clement made his planet Mesklin spin with a ~18 min day to get the equatorial gravity down to 3g. And that seems in line with my rough jottings.

Anyway, apologies for helping to take the thread OT. I shall stop now.

---------------------------------------------

* C'mon it's Friday night!

 

[thaddeus6th]

I'm more forgiving of other writers than myself. When I saw I'd put 'fire' in the context of loosing bows, my note to correct it included a subsidiary direction to cut my own hands off after rewording it.

'Firing' bows is the biggest single annoyance.