The art of being a bastard

That's the translation i make of the line "How to be a good officer". Most raiding guilds (which i know of) that never make it past the entry level raiding, fall apart due to drama or just never go raiding at all due to poor leadership. I'm not a ace at being a leader myself, but what the hell i learn by doing. Being a insensitive bastard to some degree is a start IMO.

Because guild killer moments is when the leadership gets too friendly with people. And when other people complain to the officers about others performing really bad and dragging the raid down or similar stuff, then the officers won't be able to react properly. Mostly because they are friends with the people who are performing badly and don't want to hurt them by confronting them. Thus guild drama is created which is just another hole in a already sinking ship when it comes to stuff like this. A classic example is the guild leader with the under performing girlfriend who can't play for shit but still gets to come because the fact that she is the guild leaders girlfriend.
IMO there are 2 types of raiding people.
-Raiders.
And...
-The people who gets to raid because they know other people who raid.
But I'll get to that some other day...

Let's face it! raiding guilds are sinking warships which either are already burning or got oil lamps far to close to the short fuse that leads to the ammunition supply. Leading them is a matter of how fast you are at plugging the holes, moving the fire away from the fuses and dodging bullets flying at you from all directions.
Now let's say you stop for a minute because you are afraid you might hurt the oil lamps feelings. if you move them away from where they are standing, or if you are afraid they won't like the way you carry them, they might get sad and you don't want that... That might be just the amount of time the oil lamp needs before it gets hit by a stray bullet and then your standing in a inferno, still with bullets flying around you. Then you will wish you weren't that caring about the oil lamps feelings or that you were the one who were getting hit by that stray bullet instead.

On the other hand. If you are a bastard who understands that you gotta move the damn oil lamp and you don't give a damn if it doesn't like being moved you have averted the crisis and you got less problems.

To sum it up, hard decisions gotta be made, if no one makes them things just gets worse and sometimes people will hate you for it but if you care about everyone's feelings the whole guild will be ripping each others eyes out within the week is over. Most new guilds are formed around friends who all get a officer spot, not due to their leadership skills but just because they are friends of whoever created the guild. A guild like that will sooner or later run into a huge wall if none of these officers decide to be a bastard.