While I have been an officer in my guild for about a year (i think) I am pretty new to the role of GM (only 2 weeks) and I thought I would share some of the things that I personally feel are important as a leader. GM styles vary from dictatorships to democracies to hello kitty style all ins and each method has it’s pros and cons.  I have been in guilds with all of the above and so like to think I have pretty clear ideas on what worked and didnt work.

Lets start by talking about the different styles of GM’s and some of those pros and cons that I mentioned, making note that I’m talking about progression guilds not levelling guilds.

Dictatorship

Lets be honest, so long as the GM knows their shit and can backup their demands with facts, performance and progression then this style of GM can work well, as is the case with one of my guilds ex-gms.

Pros

• You will generally lay out clearly what is expected of each and every person in the guild and their roles in the raids
• Raids will be taken very seriously
• People who strive for the best will fit in well, especially if they know that fire != buff

Cons

• High Turnover of raiders is inevitable if you are not very specific with your recruitement, emos will quit when you suggest to them that breaking CC is a nub thing to do etc
• Burnout is also inevitable, especially around times of slowdown as you are still pushing for progression but everyone else is tired of running Ulduar
• Leadership by fear can sometimes mean you dont get the best out of people, again comes down to who you’re recruiting

Democracy

A democracy is my choice of leadership style but it really revolves around ensuring you have the right people stepping up in the guild to take on extra responsability. I dont want a raid night to be called because I’m not available. A group of officers who are willing to step up and take ownership and pride in the guild breeds great returns.

Pros

• Encourages personal investment in the guild by more than just the GM
• By giving everyone a voice (preferabbly on forums or in raid chat not over vent/mumble) you also encourage people to look at how to improve themself.
• Ideally builds stronger relationships amongst the guildies and reduces the turnover of raiders, especially in those times when progression is slow or non-existant and better loot is to be had elsewhere
• Sharing the load should also reduce the turnover of officers and raid leaders too (hopefully)

Cons

• Sometimes it’s easy in this type of environment for people to forget that regardless of a GM’s interest in hearing your opinions and suggestions, in the end you make the final call

Hello Kitty Style All Ins

This would clearly have to be the worse scenario for a raiding guild, a guild needs leadership and direction. I wont even list pros and cons for this one

Ok sooo thats the different types of GM’s out there really, could list others like ‘Meh Whatever’ etc but I wont

Now I think the following things are important for any raiding guild;

1. Outline your direction for the guild and where you see people fitting into it.
2. Ensure that you have the appropriate heirachy to be covering all of your raiders and provide them with feedback about their performances
3. Always provide positive feedback whenever you can. “Great Kill Tonight” > “Well we should have gotten him down 20 attempts ago”
4. Keep characters in order, dont let a single person ruin the game for others. If you have someone who is not fitting in or is being inappropriate, address it and deal with it. If they are not willing to change then maybe another guild would be better suited to their requirements.
5. Provide incentive to do better, this may simply be in the way of gold from gbank for good attendance or extra DKP for first kills.
6. Where possible encourage others to step up, if you have a member of the guild who is doing well then encourage them to take on more responsability, again this is about building pride and ownership within the guild

That’s it for now