Leadership in guilds

[Vargrahim]

A big problem as I perceive it seems to me to be the absence of leadership in some guilds. And what I mean with absence is a guild leader who logs on only to give commands, but does not play himself. It is very discouraging to take orders from someone who hardly plays, or play alternative characters. Not aimed at anyone in particular, but time simply goes by and nothing happens. I think if someone does not care to play his role or does not have the time, he should simply resign from the position. Another problem is of course that the guilds completely fails when it comes to how they should be, and to take in impressions from the world. It gets reduced to sending mail, posting notes, etc. I want active leadership. Perhaps it just me, but it seems that the problem was never really solved.

[Abharsair]

Most guilds allow the players to decide for themselves who their leader should be. Those of you who are members of these guilds have no right (yes, no right at all) to complain about your leaders if you are unwilling to change them. And that includes the willingness to step up to the responsibility.

[aragog]

Well, in some points you're right, Abha, but not everyone in a guild has the possibility to change it. If you're more or less the only low ranked member beeing around, you actually cannot do anything at all. It's different for guilds like Crusaders where quite some members are logged in at least once a week or something, but it doesn't work for druids for example. You always need votes and if no high ranked members are around to vote at all, you're pretty lost and I agree that this is a very frustrating process. The same with accepting new members - if noone is around to accept and educate them, people will loose interest pretty fast.

poAragog

[Abharsair]

My reply was aimed at most guilds, not all, and I think I said that at the beginning of my post. I don't know the Druids well enough to make a judgment about their voting procedures, but I know that for example the Crusaders have plenty of candidates which could challenge the current leader for leadership. The same applies to several other guilds.

Don't get me wrong, I do have sympathies for guilds which do not have an IC way to decide who leads their guild, and which do not have an active leadership, and in those cases I consider complaints to be both justified and valid. However, in cases where guilds have enough active members who could become the new leader if they would just try hard enough, I don't think complaints about inactive/lazy leadership is appropriate at all.

[jezz]

I agree with both Varg and Abh. Reaching the leadership of a guild is a very important step for most players; you work hard to reach that position and once you get it, the feelings, both IC and OOC, of ruling a guild are very juicy: you get more possibilities with politics, sometimes access to items only the guild leader can use, a bunch of mercs (players ) to give orders to, the responsibility of leading them and try to do it right so they have fun with you... etc etc etc.

But among all the benefits, I think you get also a BIG handicap: your guild pals need you to guide them. I don't think it's enough just logging now and then and sending a bunch of mails. That's like a RL boss who you never get to know personally and only sends you mails to your account telling you what to do, and it's frustrating.

I myself have been leader of a guild for quite some time and I must say it was like a drug for me. I felt really good trying to arrange a guild and helping the members of it, but sadly, a time came when I couldn't log as often as I'd like. I still was the most powerful member of the guild and not even allowing the members for a duel would help, since I doubt they could beat me, but as I said earlier, you have the responsibility of the leadership and since I couldn't fulfill that point as I wanted it to be, I simply gave that "title" to an active and promising member and stepped back.

I think I did well, since the guild has not died or anything, so I encourage other guild leaders to think about others first and forget about all the good things of leadership for a moment.

[Delia]

Just asking...how do people feel about the guilds with no distinct leader(guess its only the Shao-Lin and the layman guilds?) I've always wondered this. I atleast thoroughly enjoy the 'shared leadership'-model.

Anyway, the leader responsibility thingy is a lot of burden to carry. Sometimes I feel its my "responsibility" to be around and play Geas, being the "head" of two guilds and all. Finding the time can be hard.(For Delia too, she is a busy girl.) But its been fun, more so now when I see both guilds getting new members and all the efforts bearing fruit. Perhaps someday I can have Delia just kick back and relax?

[ganandorf]

Perhaps someday I can have Delia just kick back and relax?

that's what underlings are for get them to do all your work

[Vargrahim]

Even in guilds like the Crusaders you must still become at least a rank high enough to challenge the leader, which makes sense, but also does not help the problem.

Added to this, the challenge can be canceled at any time by the leader himself.. which somehow circumvents the feature.

[Abharsair]

Even in guilds like the Crusaders you must still become at least a rank high enough to challenge the leader, which makes sense, but also does not help the problem.

As you already said it yourself, it wouldn't make sense to allow every rank to challenge a leader. And as I wrote earlier, there are plenty of Crusaders around who have the required rank to do so, but if they don't want to, then it seems hardly to be a general problem.

Added to this, the challenge can be canceled at any time by the leader himself.. which somehow circumvents the feature.

With the condition of having a very good reason for doing so, and I am not aware of a challenge which has been declined so far (if it did, then no one brought it to my attention). Therefore I see no reason to complain about a potential problem which hasn't even occurred yet, and which might never occur.

[ganandorf]

To Vurg:
Even though the head of the crusaders or lady marshal does not log on much doesn't mean there is no active leadership. there are many whose rank is underneath her, but the are fit enough to lead in her absence.

Just because there is one main leader (eg. lady marshal/dreadmaster) in a particular guild, doesnt mean the highest ranking active character cannot make decisions for the guild in the absence of the guild leader, or atleast that is something they should be able to do.

[Delmon]

From me, it seems the best solution is for the head leader to be as active as possible, logging in at least once every 2 days (fair?), or give the leadership over to a more active underling, just like Jezz did. It's fair. It's right. I don't the wizards should have to put alot of code into something like this.


For those guilds that are struggling now with inactive leadership, challenge their leadership. The inactive should understand.

[ganandorf]

(note: when i said that the people should be able to take temp leadership i did not mean coding wise i just meant like leading the guild and stuff, commanding junk)

wow for once i actually AGREE with delmon

and now i immediately regret saying that, damnit delmon

[Malys]

With the condition of having a very good reason for doing so, and I am not aware of a challenge which has been declined so far (if it did, then no one brought it to my attention). Therefore I see no reason to complain about a potential problem which hasn't even occurred yet, and which might never occur.

Actually, I've declined two challenges in the last month or two. But, I feel I had a good reason for doing so. Something I don't care to discuss on the forums, but I'll gladly discuss to wizards or fellow Crusaders elsewhere, if they're curious.

I don't play often, and I have no problem with backing off and giving leadership to another. But, there is a reason I haven't passed it on yet, and it's the same reason I've declined the last two challenges so far.