When it comes to leading people, whether it is on the battlefield or through the next big instance, a huge thing to remember is how your actions affect the other leaders around you. Your decisions as a squad leader or class leader, battalion commander or guild officer can easily cause problems. As a leader, here are five thoughts to keep in mind before problems arise.
1: Unified Front
When Ice Crown Citadel came out, my guild had an influx of new recruits. One of those was a Death Knight who badly needed to work on his gear. He simply wasn’t ready to raid yet, but I was willing to give him a chance once he had gotten his gear in order. One raid night I log in late due to work and find that the new recruit was in the raid group. Surprised to see him in the raid so quickly, I check over his gear. He was missing gems and enchants, those that he did have were of low quality or totally wrong.
Since I was a class leader at the time, I sent a quick whisper to one of the officers, asking what was going on with the guy.
“He said he was ready to go and I didn’t have time to look over his gear so I took his word”
I then sent a whisper to the new guy asking him to zone out, that he just wasn’t ready to raid.
We start clearing trash and get up to Lord Marrowgar. I notice that the new Death Knight was still in the raid and standing beside me in the raid zone.
“Dude, did you not get my whisper? I need you to zone out, your gear still needs a ton of work” By now I am getting whispers from others in the guild asking why a guy covered in green quality items and cheap gems is sitting in the raid.
“What do you mean? I was told to leave after this boss”
Fan-freaking-tastic. Come to find out, the same officer that I had questioned about an unprepared recruit in the raid was the same guy that told that very recruit to zone out AFTER the boss. Now the new guy is getting conflicting orders from two different people in his chain of command. Not acceptable.
What was needed was a unified front between the officers and class leaders of the guild. If one group gave an order, the other group needed to support it.
What could have saved much headache and pain was proper communication. Had either of us spoken to the other about what we wanted the new guy to do, mixing up orders wouldn’t have been an issue.
2: Be Upfront and Honest
If someone messes up, tell them. If someone needs to improve or is hurting the guild or raid, tell them! People are not mind readers and will not be able to improve on something if they don’t know it’s an issue. This is a two way street though. If you screw up, wipe the raid, make a mistake, you need to be honest about it. We are all human and make mistakes, just make sure you are fixing the ones you can. Address the problem head on, find out why there is an issue and come up with a solution.
3: Praise in Public, Scorn in Private
Imagine you are in a raid, fighting a boss. Tanks are doing what they need to do, healers are…healing, DPS is going crazy stabbing stuff, shooting fireballs, pulling off all kinds of fancy moves. Suddenly the boss throws down a patch of fire and one of your DPS sits in it and dies.
How do you handle the situation?
Yell at the player? Send him a whisper after the fight? Kick him from the guild?
Embarrassment and shame are powerful motivators, but not very productive. Getting called out for a first time mistake can quickly make your players bitter and resentful. When dealing with mistakes it’s best to handle them in private. In game whispers and private vent/teamspeak chats often will produce more results than yelling at a player.
Did a guild member pull off an amazing feat during a raid? Did someone donate a much needed resource to the guild bank? Is someone simply doing a good job? Praise your people in public. Those doing well will get recognition from everyone around and those that aren’t doing so well will be more inclined to improve!
4:Don’t Criticize Peers
One of the worst things a leader can do is criticize his or her peers. There is a perception that the officers and class leaders are better than your average player and don’t fall victim to stupid mistakes. While this is usually true, we all screw up. Having one Officer comment about how another Officer failed at a raid mechanic looks bad for both parties. The one doing the bad mouthing looks like a douche who is trying to bring others down to boost himself up while the one that failed has confidence in his leadership shaken. Anything that damages morale and trust in Officers is bad for the whole guild.
I’m not trying to say that if someone of higher rank in a guild screws up and stands in fire or gets cleaved by the boss that they should get away with it. I am just trying to get across the fact that there is a proper way to address the situation where the perception of perfection (or close to it) is left intact.
5: Value Input
A few years ago I was a raiding member of a semi successful guild. The guild leader ruled with an iron fist and while he wasn’t liked by all, he was well respected on the server. I was promoted to Officer in that guild and helped lead raids, coordinated the healing and handed out loot, all of the Officer duties one would expect. Many of the raiding members came to me rather than the other officers because of my “easy to talk to “attitude. The biggest complaint I received was the guild leader didn’t value input. Guild members had a difficult time talking to the guild master, they felt that any suggestions they made were ignored and were frustrated with failures that would have been prevented had the guild leader listened to guild members.
It doesn’t matter if your guild leadership runs on a democracy or dictatorship complete with iron fist and secret police, failing to listen to your guild members is failure. There are many players that are not in a leadership role but know what they are talking about and have the ability to seriously help a situation by giving their input. Don’t think that because the new guy just joined the guild that he doesn’t know what he is talk about or that the best healer ever doesn’t know a thing or two about DPS; listen to them and allow them to voice their thoughts and opinions. It is the job of a leader to listen to his or her people and then make decisions based on all of the information he is given.
Leadership is all about putting out the small fires before they get too large and burn your house down. Knowing what to look for and what problems can arise will make taking care of them much easier. Just remember that problems will arise. No matter what you do, there will be issues. Learn from your mistakes and fix what you can.