I am no kind of leader but I am a reasonably experienced player. I can give some advice I guess.
A fire axe (looted from a fire station) is a good thing to have but not such a good thing to have to use. I recommend always keeping it in your inventory once you have one. The same goes for a flak jacket (police station), which is no good against zombies but will help with firearms if another survivor gets Ideas. A GPS unit is helpful for navigation but can be hard to find without the right skills.
If you don't have any combat skills, your best shot at getting experience is looting a hospital for first-aid kits and healing injured people. There are hospitals near the mall, but I don't know their barricade status (I may check them out later). Combat skills blow away every other experience-getting option cold, though.
Quick, effective combat skill choices are Firearms Training followed by Pistol Training or Hand-To-Hand Combat followed by Axe Proficiency; guns deal more damage at once but require that you spend extra time finding ammo. After combat skills, the most important option is probably Free Running. Since there's a well-defended entry-point police station near Marven Mall, you will at least be able to get ammo without needing Free Running. It's still safer inside a stronghold, though.
It is more important to get to safety than to get the kill unless you have someone ready to revive you on call. Don't stick around for a kill if it leaves you unprotected.
That's all I can think of right now for low-level play.