In scrounging the US and EU guild relations forums for inspiration, I came across this post on abuse within the officer ranks. I haven’t quite got enough to say on that particular subject at the moment, but one thing the OP said jumped out at me:
All I got in response was him arguing with me for two hours saying that I’d turned his [sic] back on him, and stolen his glory
I’m assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that the “glory” referred to is the glory of being an officer within the guild.
*blink* *blink*
I would hope that I’m not the only guild leader who is surprised to hear the role of officer as being glorious. At best, it can be frustrating and a source of additional work. In a fair guild, I’d think that the most reward you could expect to get out of being an officer is an increased chance at being part of a raid, but only for mechanical reasons like needing a loot master – not just because you’re an officer.
I know I’m being a bit naïve here. The guild relation forums and plenty of blogs are replete with examples of people who have abused their power as an officer. Offenses range anywhere from ego-tripping to guild bank theft to outright sexual harassment. But I doubt that this corruption stems from the position of being an officer. Rather, these are examples of selfish, broken people who would press any advantage they were given. WoW, and the anonymity it provides, just provides an outlet. Think of it as an extension of Gabe’s G.I.F.T theorem (warning: NSFW).
The point I’m trying to make is that when you’re doing it right, being a part of guild leadership is a service to the members of your guild, not really a position of power. It may not have the strict delineations of something like participatory politics, but you’re supposed to be facilitating the operation of the guild – not for reward but because you want to see the guild prosper.
Learning From Others – if That’s Possible
The problem then becomes one of finding people who agree with this sentiment to be your officers. Obviously it’s not that easy based upon the reports of abuse. I would like to dismiss these (numerous as they are) as being big on profile but not on significance. Guilds don’t post on the guild relations forum or write on blogs when everything is going swimmingly. Nobody keeps statistics on things like guild lifetime or officer and member turnover, so it’s hard for us to look at “the most successful guilds” and emulate their ways.
To the larger WoW community, success equals progression, but there’s no evidence to suggest that top progression guilds have the best leadership practices. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that most top progression guilds have a harsher leadership regime than many of us would be comfortable with – but that the members know that when they join and agree to fall in line because it gives the desired result.
I’m going to whip out the wide brush and paint guilds one of three colors:
- guilds whose officers are the friends of the guild leader
- guilds whose officers are simply the people willing to do the job
- guilds whose officers are picked for their ability to do the job
There’s obviously some overlap here. Just because you’re the friend of the guild leader doesn’t mean that you’re not capable of being a good officer and willing to put the extra time in. Just because your guild leader doesn’t put much thought into who becomes an officer doesn’t mean that they won’t end up with a few good people in that role. However, if you don’t take the third approach to selecting officers, then the experience for your members will be inconsistent at best.
You may have a really good recruiting officer who finds good candidates, answers all their questions before they apply, and helps shepherd them through the trial period. Then they ask a question of the loot officer, who turns around and acts like a total tool. Or perhaps the loot officer isn’t around, so they act another officer who doesn’t quite know all the ins and outs of the system. They get bad information that leads them to make a mistake while in a raid.
