Storm in an E-Club

I was going to write something about the recent monkey farms, but then something else interesting came up.

Sometimes you wonder if all human associations are in the end doomed to follow in the same pattern, because people tend to come in certain flavours. When you mix certain flavours together, you get the same soup.

This isn't completely truth because depending on the personalities of the people involved that is layered on their basic template, sometimes they can still work together. To continue with the analogy, skillful seasoning with herbs can make the soup still drinkable. But a lot of times the seasoning requires some kind of practical concern -- you still need to work and make money, or it's difficult getting another sponsor, or responsibility to someone even higher up, etc.

The soup we've ordered today is a certain RP SG that I've been involved in the past 6 months or so (my, time does fly). In just two days, it has gone from three leaders to one leader. The officers are still there but I don't really see any leadership coming from them, but more on that later.

One leader is newly promoted. He's bursting with energy and ideas. He comes up with a constant flow of improvements on the SG, rolls a tons of alts and turns them all into storyline plots that he wants people to join in -- usually the plots are centered around his characters but that's what everyone does -- basically he's the "happening" kind of guy. In RoD guilds he'd be the guy who's organizing runs everyday, and trying to get people to go after the big "order mobs", and levelling/brewing non-stop when he's not running. He'd want a run committee and a quest committee and pk committee...the good people stay and the slackers get laid off. The guild's gonna be the best thing ever and he's gonna make it so, it's people are going to say "GoX is where it's happening, they're exploring and running the big mobs".

The other leader has been there for some time. He was the survivor of an older upheaval and he wants stability above all. He wants the SG to return to what it once was, which was a cohesive group of close-knit friends who would get together automatically the moment they log on, even just to sit around and chat. He wants to just rebuild the original atmosphere of the SG by installing minimum activity requirements and teaming regularly. In RoD guilds he'd be the old-timer who likes to sit around guild recall to chat with people, and then have everyone go to run Justice/Zeus to get that pop item the everyone wants. While they wait for respawn everyone can chat and on the whole have a good time. The guild's going to be where everyone can be at home, and they're going to say to newbies, "GoX is a good guild to join, they take care of you and help you get started".

At first, everything started out well. We can call the two archetypes Visionary and Foundation. The two admire each other and get along well because they provide each other with what the other is lacking. But as time goes by tension starts to grow because their visions are different. Both want the best for the guild, but what they believe is "best" differs. In their eyes, the other guy is destroying the guild.

And as with the classical archetypes, Visionary is a bit moody and impulsive. Foundation tends towards being stubborn and conservative. Every time Foundation thwarts Visionary, Visionary's temper flares up, which causes Foundation views him as less trustworthy. So, Foundation gives Visionary less consideration, and when Foundation digs his feet in, Visionary feels Foundation is only giving lip service to compromise, which makes him get more frustrated, which leads Foundation to read him as less trustworthy, which leads him to getting even more frustrated...

Finally, Visionary has reached the last straw. He is grieved and enraged by the betrayal of Foundation, whom he once thought was his friend. He believes Foundation is using his elder status in the group to organise people against him and ostracize him. He behaves erratically and does some "sabo", then quits the group. Fine, he thinks, Foundation wins, he can have the group.

The next day, Foundation finds out. He feels responsible for everything that has happened and believes that everyone is blaming him for Visionary's departure. He's depressed that after all this, the group has become even more unstable. He must commit hara-kiri; without him everything will improve.

So there's only the main leader left, who seems on the whole pretty bochap about this conflict. But you can't blame him since he has to take care of his newborn son and it's clear where his priorities should lie. Which brings us to the officers.

Going into the more philosophical part...

The problem I see with the officers is that they're not acting like officers, which is to say they are not showing any leadership. Part of the entire problem was that the expression of leadership (I won't say burden since I don't know about behind the scenes stuff) was expressed only by the actual leaders, two of whole have left and the last one is trying to pick up the pieces.

What do I mean by "expression of leadership"? Simply said, when one is a leader, one no longer belongs to oneself but also to everyone else. One person doesn't make a leader, you can only be a leader in a group. Thus a leader has to express leadership by bringing people together and "leading" them. Yes, to act as a leader, one has to sacrifice part of one's privacy and become a public persona. In this sense, leadership is not just a privilege but also a burden; if you don't want the burden, then don't take up the privilege. If you want to play by your own self, do your own thing, hang out with your own friends...then don't be a leader.

Who would want to be a leader then? Here we experienced two being burnt out already. Sure, I don't want to be a leader, you don't want to be a leader... let the person who wants to be a leader lead -- there are people like that around who like to do this (my boss for example). Conversely don't put people in a leadership if they don't lead. They can be the best player, the friendliest person, the most active person, your good friend, whatever -- and they can remain that as a valuable member. It's possible to show appreciation to valuable members without putting them in the officer position. It's better to have only one or two leaders who lead, than have many people in the leadership who are not leading.

The reason for this is that members will expect leaders to do something -- lead something. When they log on and see all the officers doing their own thing, the resulting impression is either (1) "leadership is not even interested in their own organisation", or (2) "the leadership is doing their own happy thing and not keeping us in the loop". Then they will respond with (1) "then why should I be interested in the organisation?", or (2) "there's no point for me to be here then".



Latest Update:

Looks like one more officer left with Visionary. That makes two leaders and two officers disappearing. One officer gets promoted to leader, whom I've never experienced as trying to "lead" me at all. Dunno what's going on. But then I'm the patient type -- I'll see what happens.