Leadership

Just wanted to post a random thought here. It relates to WoW, but it doesn't have to. It's about being a leader. You can be a leader in just about anything. Every group must have a leader. Any communistic/anarchy group will inevitably end up splitting up. Sides will be chosen, and the group suffers from splitting apart.

As such, the #1 job of the leader is to promote unity. A common ground to stand on. We all stand, or we all fall. This attitude makes some of the closest-knit groups even stronger. You mess with one person, you mess with us all. This applies in WoW too. I remember when I got ganked by hordies back at level 60 outside of AQ, the whole raid came over and ganked them back. That shows a lot of unity.

There are a lot of things that can break this unity. As soon as two people feel that things should be done differently, there is tension. If person A wants to do one thing, and person B wants to do another thing, the leader can get stuck in the middle of a bad situation that he shouldn't even need to be in.

Here is where a bad leader will try to step away from the situation, figuring it will end up OK. If he doesn't take sides, everyone will be happy. This is totally and utterly wrong. The leader has to take a stand. Even if it's directly between the two, he must take a stand and defend his position.

Some of you remember way back in MC when there was tier 2 loot issues with a double priest leggings drop. I had about 30 seconds to decide in a nutshell who got the leggings. I made a decision that I still regret to this day. I lost sleep over it that night. But I had to defend it. I made my decision, and my decision stood. Some people see this as stubbornness. But this is what a leader needs to do. Changing one's mind is not the way a leader does anything.

Try to remember this when you're forced to choose between two things. Two ideas, two people, whatever the choice may be. It's always a tough one. It's easy to try to meet halfway. But in the end, you need to make your decision and stick with it. That is what truly makes a good leader in the end. All leaders will make bad decisions at some point...the good ones will make them less frequently. But you'll know exactly where the leader stands, and sometimes that matters more than anything else.