Some amount of flexibility. I still recall the HRC run where the group lead insisted everyone stand in the red on purpose for the fight with the Warrior and then kept getting annoyed when those of us with lighter armor died repeatedly.

Honesty, integrity, fairness and patience. Has a vision where to go with the team, knows what s/he is doing, doesnt (need to) yell at ppl.
Someone to follow to hell and back.

I like a Raid Leader who runs normal trials as if they are Vet so we dont learn bad habits. Also a raid leader who keeps the group on mission, as it can be like herding cats.

Knowledge is the biggest thing IMO. I can live with most personality traits as long as they know what they are doing in the raid. The only thing that really bothers me is when the lead does not understand mechanics.

eso_nya wrote: »

Honesty, integrity, fairness and patience. Has a vision where to go with the team, knows what s/he is doing, doesnt (need to) yell at ppl.
Someone to follow to hell and back.

This.

Business centered, but a GOOD leader's qualities are transcendent regardless of trade.

FORBES: 10 Unique Perspectives On What Makes A Great Leader

There are many things that can make a leader great, they face a hard job. I've both lead and been lead in countless trials and these are some of the things that are important to me.

Patience. People have mentioned it earlier but again, this is very very important. You are not just a leader, you are a teacher, be patient and teaching. If someone does something wrong or the group wipes on a hard fight, don't get angry, don't take out frustration on the team. Everyone makes mistakes and not everyone has the same level of experience. Want to make a shout out to @code65536 for personifying this trait while leading, a true leader and a teacher, really miss running with you.

Do Not ASSUME. Never make assumptions about anything, you might think its super obvious that the way to do it is the one you know, but not everyone does things the same way, small details can make or break a fight. I hated when I went into a Trial as a Tank, asked "how do you want me to tank this certain thing, some people do things differently" and got the response "Just do what you always do" or "Doesn't matter" or worse ".....". It always ended the same way, we got to said fight and "What are you doing?", "That's not how you do it." Please do not be that leader.

Also never assume everyone knows the trial, some people are too afraid to say they don't know, make them feel comfortable and let them know its ok to tell you so you can teach them. And never assume gear set ups.

Now for me when I lead, this was important. Have a plan, organize, know the team. I always did bit of a check list before each raid. Was everyone on teamspeak, did everyone have their soulgems, armor repaired, weapons charged, (back when everyone did TBS I had to make sure everyone had 2 mundus stones), ask if anyone didn't know the raid or only done certain parts, assign teams if necessary and lastly go over battleplan and do ready check. If any of those things were out of order we had to fix that before going. As well, I requested TS for all Trials, normal as well as veteran, cause I believed it was more fun, more organized and was more of a teaching experience.

As others have said, running Normal the same way as you do Veteran was my way of doing it. Why do things one way, learn to do it like that and then when you start doing veteran you have to relearn everything? Obviously this and the TS for all Trials was meet with opposition when forming non "core" team runs in the Guild or across multiple guilds, but I stuck to it for what in my opinion was the bettered experience for all involved.

Last but not least, having FUN! When you can have fun with your team that is the best kind of trial you can have. Even through my routine at the starts I was ok with messing around in non progression runs. If we did it just for gear or we didn't care about score or time(for achievements for people or others), we messed around a lot. Like, pulling more than usual, getting someone killed, trying new tactics, there is fun to be had. The right people and the right atmosphere is needed for this though, harder to do with randoms, friends are a wonderful thing.

Hope this helped some people out.