How do you tell leadership that it's time to lead?

So for awhile now my guild has had this wonderful problem. It's a problem the GM and other people in "leadership" positions (I put that in quotes for a reason, naturally.) say they've noticed when I bring it up to them. However they all say that they're at a loss as to how to fix it.

The problem, simply put, is that our raiding team basically sucks. Heals and Tanks seem to be just fine, and we have some excellently-geared people in both slots and we've never had people die unless or until the healers have run out of mana. Our problem seems to lie in our DPS. While we haven't done raids recently (as in the last couple of lockouts due to the holiday season and all), the times we have done stuff it's been...frankly painful to watch the meters. DPS is piss-poor to the point that if I actually said the numbers I'm seeing, most of you would either laugh your asses off, shake your heads in disgust, or more likely both. Some may possibly do a spit-take. I make no apologies for you having to mop up your keyboards.

now, some people DO try their damndest. For example we have a very contentious hunter who he doesn't do the best DPS on some fights like Nef for example, but upon looking into it, his DPS drop is because he is the ONLY person kiting adds, while the other two hunters zone-out on whatever boss they're hitting. None of us begrudge the add-kiting hunter because we understand that getting the job done is a damn sight more important than topping the meters, but realistically between that and the low DPS the people who ARE pushing on one boss are doing it's just...alot of work.

Between that, and the fact that we generally have gotten into bad raiding-practices (20 minute breaks, people not showing up, etc. The basic baddie shit that makes all of us who are ashamed of it facepalm), things are getting rather annoying to put it lightly. The GM is considering moving to another server and asking a select group of us to tag along, however when he came to me with this suggestion I asked him why we didn't try being a bit more rigid in our discipline in terms of raiding if that's really what he wanted to do. he didn't really have alot of answers but he agreed with what I rambled on about in terms of it.

At this point I'm feeling like while we might loose some people if we implement something more structured, I feel like there'd be a gain in player quality and possibly guild quality overall. However that takes the leadership stepping up and putting their foot down, which....I'm not sure of how to explain to them that the first step is just deciding to DO something about their issues and being stern about the expectations they have.

Is it even my place as a raider and someone friendly to the GM and Officers? Even if it is, how do I explain it so I can help them gain the resolve to just go forward and DO something about these circumstances as opposed to throwing money at the problem by running away and blaming something else when I get the feeling that if we would just make an effort to make and enforce expectations, things might turn around?

You're going to lose people either way. if the raids are very relaxed, you will lose the more serious raiders, if they more structured you will lose the more relaxed playes. I'd agrree with you that its generally best to be structured, but thats down to perosnal choice, but at the end of the day everyone needs to be in a guild that fits their expectations, if they aren't, then they aren't going to have a positive guild expeirience.

It's your place as a raider to talk to your GM and raise your concerns with him or the Guild's Raid Leader(not during the raid though), All you can do however is offer some constructive criticism and suggestions on how to turn things around. Maybe you can offer to help out with running the raids perhaps as the DPS officer or some such. Unfortunately you can't Back seat lead, you're either leading or your not. If things don't turn around you've got to ask yourself how much of this shit you can put up with before you jump ship.

If people aren't showing up for their raid spot, AFKing for excessive amounts of time, or have failed at finding the tab button, you need the leadersip to striaght up tell them that they need to improve attitude/gameplay or you're going to need to bench them for someone else. if you can't bench them for a better player, you need to recruit more.

If you're GM is considering Jumping ship its pretty clear he has lost his will to lead,and it may very well be a deathknell for the guild. or it may not. it depends alot on how much the people in the guild want to raid with the peopl in the guild. Either way he needs to lead lead until he's made up his mind either way, and if he cna't lead whilst he's making up his mind he really should find somone else to do it for him until then. It's a hard thing to say to a guy, but it's about the guild's succes not about him, if he needs some time to put hiself before the guild he shouldn't be leading it. Unless all of you are happy with him being like that.

I agree with Tengenstein If your guild master is thinking of leaving he might not be putting 110% into raiding. Communication is the key and there should be no issues between both of you. If your are put down because you think you should try doing something different its not any better. As a guild leader we are there to listen to members and try something new.

As for members who are doing dps again talking is the key. Some members will be offended if you try to tell them how to gem or enchant or what stats they need but its only to make them better. If they are afk and only show up when its time to /roll .... you dont need them raiding in first place.