(From PhillyInc.) — If Deloitte L.L.P.’s John Hagel III is right, your next key executive hire may be someone who has proved his mettle by becoming a top guild leader in World of Warcraft. Actually, the odds of that are pretty good, given that the massively multiplayer online role-playing game now has 11.5 million subscribers. But why would you want to hire from that group? Because, Hagel said, such games are developing new leaders. “World of Warcraft may be the most effective leadership-development method we have,” he told those gathered in Huntsman Hall on the University of Pennsylvania campus Wednesday for the 14th Wharton Leadership Conference. That was a bold statement, coming after an earlier presentation by General Electric Co. chief learning officer Susan Peters on the industrial giant’s $1 billion annual commitment to leadership development and training. I’ve never played World of Warcraft. But Hagel’s notion actually isn’t a new one. An International Business Machines Corp. study three years ago found a lot of parallels between the attributes of business leaders and online gamers. In fact, a survey of IBM’s own internal gaming community indicated that half said playing MMORPGs had improved their leadership skills in the real world. Read more.

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Online gamers, workplace gainers