What Kind of Leader am I?

Along with writing your guild mission, you need to consider what type of leader you are capable of becoming; and this takes a HUGE deal of honesty with yourself. This is a tough thing for many of us to do. Are you able to lay down the law, kick members without mercy, remove people from raids and not worry about their feelings? Are you sensitive to others feelings and want to be friends with everyone?

Knowing how you deal and react to people should also determine the kind of guild you wish to run. Let’s look at the first set of factors, that you are a rules lawyer and not afraid to use the beating cane. With this type of leadership, you are well on the path of becoming a hardcore raid guild leader. As a raiding leader, you will need to make judgments on what is best for the guild and not what is best for the member. For example, your main tank is not holding agro the way he should and your priests are dying because of it. Your job is not to hand hold the warrior and let him practice his agro maintenance while being the main tank for the guild. You job is to yank him out of that position and replace him with a tank that can handle the job at hand and progress the guild through the instance. Now you can be a good guy and work with the “bad” tank during the off hours that you are not raiding, but at no time should the one lacking raider cause the guild to stall. If the original tank has issues with you removing her/him from that role, then you need to quickly and firmly let him know that you will discuss it after the raid and to drop it for now because your decision is final. If he can’t drop it and it spills to guild chat, then you get out the kicking boots and drop kick him back to the guild recruitment channel.

Think you can be that tough as nails, no nonsense, guild first, refer to the guild first rule if you have questions, type of leader? If so then you might make a good raiding guild leader. If you cannot do it and you know that, then do not start a guild with the mission to become a big raiding guild. You will not be able to handle it! It really is that simple. You may not make any friends, but you guild may become one of the best geared, most feared guilds on your server.

However if you enjoy making friends and having fun just talking to people and handing out in game, then you are cut out to be a casual guild leader. These guilds are built around leveling and having a good time with each other instead of worrying about boss kills and having the best loot available. While many consider this a “fun” guild, it will also be one of high turnover. As people reach the upper levels, many do begin to seek that next level of advancement and want to start participating in the end game. So they will move on to one of the raiding guilds that fits their style and current goals. You will need to be ready for this because it will happen. Do not take it personally, because it is not; they are simply ready to move on and need a guild that is hitting those final instances to do it. Instead, look at it as a badge of honor that your guild has helped that person reach their personal goals of becoming a raider and challenging the end game. Without your guild, it might have taken them much longer if they go there at all.

There are more types of guilds of course, such as the casual raiding guild, a hybrid of the two mentioned above. This is a very hard guild to lead simply because you have to lay down the beating cane from time to time and yet be nice about it while trying to still move forward as a guild in instance progression while being sensitive to people’s time restraints that come with a casual guild. Yeah, it can be very tough and slow going, but it can be done. Again, you will lose those that want more raiding, but keep others that want to raid but do not have the time that the big raiding guilds require.

There are also role playing guilds, twink guilds that want to dominate the battlegrounds at their level no matter what the cost, and so forth. Each comes with their own challenges, limits, and especially rewards. You just need to know your leadership style to best suit your guild needs.