Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.A big reason I love writing for this Web site is you, the readers. Whenever I write a column and ask you for feedback, you always provide some insightful comments. And whenever I fail to mention an important point, you guys always manage to catch it and comment on it. It's a supportive and intelligent community here, and it certainly makes my job easier!
Last week, I wrote about the "right stuff" to look for in a good officer candidate. I mentioned five traits to value in a candidate: maturity, generosity, good communication skills, emotional intelligence, and game knowledge. Necessarily, that means someone who is immature, greedy, barely literate, emotionally stunted, and a total noob would have the "wrong stuff." But, as several readers pointed out, there are other warning signs that someone will make a bad officer.
Several of you pointed out that, since the person asking the question last week actively wanted to be an officer in his guild, that should raise a red flag for his guild leader. There were many great comments about this, but Shumina summed it up best:
Being an officer is a big pain in the keister. If someone's actively seeking the position, one of two things is happening:
1) The guild is in disrepair and someone wants to do something about it in an official capacity. This means he/she is looking to overhaul the system somehow. Look for many changes or at least a push for such changes.
2) The person is looking for more esteemed position/power. This is the problem officer that will eventually splinter off to lead a competing guild and take every member as possible with him/her.
Either way, it's not a good thing when you hear about someone asking to become an officer. The other responses are correct. Look for a member that's already doing the officer job(s) and reward him/her with the official title. And then pity them. The game just became another job.
There are of course exceptions, but for the most part Shumina is correct. That's our first red-flag candidate: The Player Who Really, Really Wants to Be an Officer.
The second one I'll mention is this: The Player Who Plays for Unhealthy Amounts of Time. An "unhealthy amount" is hard to quantify, since it depends on how much free time a person actually has. But when 99% of their free time is spent in Azeroth, it should raise a red flag when you're thinking about promoting them.
Most guilds have a few of these people. In many cases, they tend to be the workhorses of the guild. They're always on and always willing to run a dungeon, a battleground, a raid, or whatever. So in that sense, they would be handy to have as an officer.
But some of them, because their entire lives revolve around the game, tend to take everything a step too far and get much too invested in what happens online. They are usually the ones who treat Arena matches as if they were truly life-and-death contests. Or who flip out in a Heroic run because someone died due to a resisted Freezing Trap. They don't do much outside of WoW, so they don't have a good perspective on what's important and what's not. A good officer has to look at the big picture sometimes, and sometimes he or she has to stop and smell the Peacebloom, too. The Player Who Plays for Unhealthy Amounts of Time can't do those things.
Our third red-flag candidate is The Player Who Shares Way Too Much Personal Information. You might have come across someone like this: Every time they're online, they start chatting in /g about some pretty personal stuff, whether it's about how they're depressed about their parents' divorce or who they're currently sleeping with. Those discussions are okay in a private setting, but when they're telling it to two dozen people (most of whom they've never met before) something is wrong. It's one thing to feel comfortable enough with your guild to share that kind of info -- it's another thing to actually go through with it and make everyone else uncomfortable.
The Player Who Shares Way Too Much Personal Information is usually someone who is out for attention, and that kind of person usually wants to be an officer for the same reason.
Finally, we have The Player Who Never Plays Sober. It can be amusing at first, but eventually that guy who shows up to every raid hammered -- and does nothing but talk about what they're drinking -- gets on everybody's nerves. They might be able to tank any boss or top the DPS charts in that state, but you really wouldn't want them negotiating a guild alliance or handling a delicate loot situation with three sheets to the wind.
Until next week, fellow officers, be wary of those who seek power!
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-14-2008 @ 11:29AM
Drak said...
Oh really? Because I spend 99 percent of my free time in WoW, I'm a bad leader huh? Well thats good to know. Guess I'll just delete my accounts, go get married, have some kids, and be utterly miserable for the rest of my life. Or maybe get a 2nd job. I could always go back into the Marines and get deployed a few more times. Angry wall of text to you!
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1-14-2008 @ 11:35AM
Starmilk said...
I believe the argument was that those who spend 99% of their free time in-game tend to take every little thing too seriously. Dare I suggest you proved his point?
1-15-2008 @ 11:31AM
dpak said...
He said there was a risk of it...and for them taking things too personally, or to an extreme.
So, either;
you just proved the article right.
Or this is a fake post, just trying to prove the article right.
1-14-2008 @ 12:13PM
Daemond said...
I'm sorry, I never post here, but that was way too ironic. hahaha
1-14-2008 @ 12:02PM
Omegi said...
I spend 90% of my free time in wow. Since our guild has been around for nearly 10 years and have now branched out to all sorts of games I am busy that entire 90%. However, your statement is true when you say that there may be a hard time letting the small things go. I too find myself making mountains out of ant mounds and sometimes I just need to relax and look at things from another perspective.
So for those that do spend 90% of their time in one game trying to manage all things "your guild name here" I do suggest taking a break now and then. Even if it's just a week or two a year. Force that vacation and enjoy other things around you. It will help the stress levels in game a little.
Even if leading a guild is a labor of love, as it is for me, you need a vacation.
1-14-2008 @ 11:30AM
Drak said...
Edit: Yeah, the drinking thing is way overrated. Thus the reason I gave up drinking. WoW>Alcohol in habits.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:22PM
Verit said...
A lot of the comments in the original WoW drinking post seemed to say it was perfectly fine. Never mind apparently the original Leeroy Jenkins video was made under the influence - that ended well (for Leeroy), but he did wipe the raid.
Problem is in higher end instances - even ZA split second reaction is necessary. I use grim reaper - and when the tank dies from 10-15k of burst damage (like the lynx boss in ZA), they only got one heal for 1500 hitpoints and the healer has been drinking all night I have to wonder if that had anything to do with it.
I know when I'm out of it - I start making mistakes like mis-estimating heals hitting wrong buttons etc.
1-14-2008 @ 11:40AM
Erika said...
So you should come to the raid with your toon as hammered as possible.
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1-15-2008 @ 1:29AM
jaded1 said...
My character's hammered, so I should be too.
It's life imitating art! lol
1-14-2008 @ 11:49AM
Drak said...
I have to say, I've never flipped out on a raid. I do dislike losing arenas. Actually, I hate losing anything in life, but that's because I was never happy with being a complete failure. Although, I have to say, because I am an officer who spends a lot of time in game, I have more credibility than other officers because I put more time in. If you are an officer, and you do not play constantly, then you shouldn't be an officer. I do it because I want the team to succeed and have put a lot of hours into it. Would the place fall apart without me? I doubt it. Would it move along smoothly like it does now? Absolutely not.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:22PM
enkafiles said...
Say consistently instead of constantly and I'd agree
1-14-2008 @ 12:20PM
Spad said...
I don't see what's wrong with asking for leadership?
You don't see business throwing out people aspire to management positions IRL. It's perfectly natural that somebody who's been in a guild for a long time wants to take on more responsibility and help it progress.
You've already covered "the right stuff"...if somebody wants to step into a position of leadership and they qualify on those points, what's the problem?
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1-14-2008 @ 12:24PM
Drak said...
Yeah, I suppose it would be ironic if you actually believed the idiocy of not giving guild leadership to those who are there giving guild leadership. I suppose the Officers quarters stuff thinks we should give it to the guy who's brand new to the guild and asking to be an officer so he can rape the guild bank.
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1-14-2008 @ 12:25PM
Milktub said...
I spend a majority of my free time in WoW (more in Outland than Azeroth, but that's a small point), adding up to around 20 hours a week.
But I think it gives me a better perspective than the person who plays five hours a week. The reason is that I know that I'll have a chance to run an instance three more times this week. Someone who has 5 hours a week of play time really has to make their time count to keep up with friends and guildmates. If they wipe twice in SLabs trying to get their class set piece, that's their week's time and they have nothing to show for it but a repair bill. If I wipe twice in SLabs, I can call it a night and try again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. I have the freedom of time to spend an early Sunday morning mining adamantite to cover my repair costs for the week.
Still don't want to be an officer. At least not until I find a guild with the following rules in place and enforced:
1. No kids/teenagers (they tend to make inappropriate jokes or flip out too easily)
2. No asking for instance runs, even if you're the guild leader playing on an alt
3. No begging, even as a joke
4. No sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.
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1-14-2008 @ 4:27PM
rafe.brox said...
@ Milktub (12)
"No asking for instance runs, even if you're the guild leader playing on an alt."
Really? How do you ever get anything done? I'm honestly curious about this.
The guild to which I belong (as a non-officer) is very, very big on lending a helping hand to folks, going so far as to having one night a week =dedicated= to it. Someone needs attunement? "Need _______? Let's get it, gang!"
Unless everything is planned out and scheduled ahead of time, this lack of support seems more than a bit exclusionary, especially if you're not all at the same phase in terms of gameplay.
1-14-2008 @ 5:04PM
GrumblyStuff said...
Rafe, I can understand a run or two somewhere but that'd be it. There's already an unfortunate amount of players that just seem to grind up to 70 then think "Oh hey, let's do shattered halls!"
Yeah, it sucks balls if you have to PUG due to no guildies being in that level range but it's far, far, FAR better to learn your class in ZF or Mara than in any Outlands instance. And, frankly, it's better to PUG while learning so you're, 1) Not pissing off you're guildies like no tomorrow and, 2) Can either drop out or replace a party member with less drama.
1-14-2008 @ 12:32PM
Lunati said...
There's a bit more to "the person who plays all the time". We have several people who pour all their free time into wow. But they also work, have lives, have family obligations every so often.
The problem comes along with people who are basically unemployed and are on wow nearly 24/7. If it goes to their head, and they assume everyone else should keep the same kind of schedule as them, and neglect obligations they can cause lots of disasters.
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1-14-2008 @ 12:42PM
csarcops said...
I don't think it's true that all people who really really want to be officers would make bad ones. In our guild, we recently promoted a member to officer because he wanted to be, and he had proven to us that he was more than capable of handling the job. He's a great guy, IRL and in-game, and he deserves it. Now, I can see where a lot of people whining "make me officer!" would NOT deserve it, wouldn't have the first idea of how to run a guild, but our guy is definitely an exception to the rule.
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1-14-2008 @ 1:30PM
Milktub said...
I agree that the people who ask for it may be qualified, but it's also a warning sign. Sometimes it's a great thing for an asker to be promoted, but sometimes it's a bad, bad, bad thing.
We recently got a new recruit in. Very interested, active. From the beginning he was asking about schedules, loot distribution systems, key and raid progression of members ... and then "what does it take to get promoted". In three weeks he'd shown himself to be mature, helpful, etc, so he was given normal membership:
"Hey, why can't I access the guild bank?"
"That's reserved for officers."
"F*** you - /gquit"
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1-14-2008 @ 1:30PM
Daemond said...
My personal opinion is that the article is a cautionary tale. It's basically informing the reader that, hey before you promote someone to the role of an officer, regardless of the leadership qualities they may possess, it's best to assess that person's intentions and their ability to lead with tact and perspective.
Do your homework, and yes, assess whether or not the would be officer is going to further the guild's vision and goals. One of the worst things you can do for a guild is provide a position of authority to someone who has a personal agenda that is in conflict with the guild's principles and guiding vision.
I don't think the article's author is saying, if you play a lot of WoW you are unfit to lead, but rather, if you know someone that plays WoW obsessively, then it doesn't hurt to assess wether or not they have the presence of mind to lead with tact and awareness that encompasses a broader scope than the borders of Azeroth.
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