My Project - The Guild I Have Created

Let me go ahead and explain my situation and maybe this will better help posters understand my views and concerns. I am a guild master of a very tight guild community. The reason this guild was created was because on my server Kel'thuzad there isnt a lot of late night guilds that sponsor or hold a 10m/25m semi progression guild. I took up this responsibility with no raiding experience other than Firelands.

My First Problem
First few months we struggled a bit because as the guild was getting their barrings, I myself was getting my barring as a guild master and a newly found raid leader. It was a struggle at first but I found some people who wanted to
push through content as fast as I did. We had some exceptionally good players and then there were players who seemed to be playing catch up. Mydownfall was keeping those people as long as I did and of course I got playful grief from my raiders but we pushed through and finally in aprilafter not seeing progression in a timely manner i began to remove players who I felt were given too many chances. It went smooth and we started to down heroic content. In August we downed Heroic Madness which is a huge huge huge accomplishment and we finished 20th on our server.

It is exciting to know that we downed heroic madness but at the same time I feel as though I failed in my word to see content in a timely manner. I let people do things that in my own views should have never let do. We come a long way but at the same time I am not happy with the progression in dragon soul. I don't want to be a baby downer or a diva about it because it was my own fault for letting the people stay. I just dont know when to say enough is enough. Player A Would mess up one week and then be great the next. It's consistency that was the issue and that was the downfall of cataclysm I am a thinker, I over think and over stress things so when i feel this way I feel as though i shouldn't feel like this because we out of the many guilds on our server completed
8/8H. This is where my competitiveness and my drive kicks in

Should i feel this way? As a guild leader and a raid leader should i feel happy and disappointed at the same
time?
How do i correct this issue when MOP comes around. Over recruit 15 players and have a wait list in case someones just having a bad night?
What would be a timely manner on boss kills and when is it time to say enough?

Next Issue – 2

I have a officer who in the last few months has shown great leadership. I needed an extra voice in my raids and he was that extra voice. I consider myself a good raid leader but i needed
someone to be forceful. To push everyones buttons. Thats what he does. He pushes peoples buttons because he believes in every single raider that they could do more than their doing so he does it in a way that when people receive it they are like f you! ill show you what i can do. Over the past few weeks he has grown tired of the wipes. Yes we have down madness as a guild and it felt great but we are still wiping to spine and madness. It is frustrating because we are trying to give people who couldnt be there for our madness kill a title.

Last night we raided and him and I got into it. He said something in ventrilo that I took wrong but it was his attitude
that presented me into thinking he meant something entirely different. We are on heroic madness and he comes into ventrilo and he says. I dont want to raid tonight. I am just not feeling raiding. I know people need their stuff but I dont care anymore. < That sent up huge flags and there was multiple people in the vent at that time. Well at that time i randomly dced due to my net and so fixing it for 5 minutes raisedmy temper even higher. So finally i got it fixed and i said in officers chat that i thought that was uncalled for and that he made himself look badly. Well we got into a heated discussion. At that time my fiancee comes into the ventrilo and my raid leader for core 2 pulls her aside. We I was busy in officer channel and then he brings up the only reason your even harping down my neck about this is because "Name of the raid leader" said stuff to your fiancee. Which wasnt the case at all. I told him it was my own personal views that what he said should not of been said in vent that it should of been said in here or in my personal window. He disagreed and said he didnt want to sugar coat things and that he was going to be him. He then stated that he was tired of arguing about this that he was about to quit the guild because it was a stupid argument that was blown out of proportion.

Well we fixed the issue but now I have people wondering why is he officer. I take up for him and tell them hes the backbone of the guild. I got pulled aside by raid leader 2 and he asked why was he an officer he does nothing but leads core 1, he doesn't farm he doesn't do anything but give opinions in meetings, and raid leads. I simply told the raid leader in core 2 that he does what I tell him to do that we have 9 other raiders in the group and if we are scrounging for matts for feasts and flasks then theres something wrong. Then the question came up which i knew was going to come. Well if that'sall he does why am I not officer and he is? Why am i just in a raid leader rank. AND BOOM the drama begins.

Its little drama like this that I feel I shouldnt have to put up with and its frustrating. I have so much on my plate and I feel like it's never finished there is always something to do. Which is great .. i love it but at the same time its like what do I do? I feel comfortable having him as an officer. He does what I want him to do, but the guild feels he doesnt do enough. That right there in itself can create a problem. Now i feel like people don't trust my judgement when I make one and in the future it could become messy.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I thought of holding a officers meeting and clearing the air but tempers may rise and there may be a heated discussion about it or the "i dont want to talk about it no more" which infuriates me to no end. Am i over thinking things?

First of all, if you haven't already done so, create some guild rules. Get your officers' input in them, but you're going to have the final say. Post them in a place for the whole guild to read. Make sure any new recruits read them as well. This will eliminate 99.9% of any drama. If you already have rules, this might be a good time to take a look at them again. Did any of them get broken with no consequence? If so, rules that are not enforced are not going to do you any good.

Second. This officer you have is going through burn out. It's stressful having wipes and with his intensity already pegged, he's going to feel it more. That being said, you need to try to have another talk with him about what he's doing and how he's effecting the guild. Make sure you let him know that he's the one with the problem and it's up to him to fix it. Offer your support, but make it clear that he has a choice and you will do what is necessary.

Once the rest of your officers see that you are dealing with him, they will chill out.

And don't you think this officer is doing what he normally does by pushing your buttons or the collective guild's buttons? You don't think he's confined that behavior just to during raids do you?

We have talked about revamping our guild rules and that is going to happen before we have MOP orientation with our new recruits. It is a great idea and one we had already discussed. We are going to cookie cut it so its easy to read but thourough enough for those to follow.

As far as this officer I believe he is going through a burn out, however; I was just in mobile chat and he got into it with a member in guild chat. It's to the point to where this officer believes his opinion is the only one that matters. Is it burn out? Yes i believe it is HOWEVER i feel if i approach him at this point that things will be heated and there maybe one less officer on my hands. I love the guy and its hard seperating my friendship aside for buisness. This is my guild and at the moment i feel that I am loved but I am not feared. I also feel that hes starting to stray a little bit into thinking he can over step his boundries with me. Which is a bad thing because once people see him do it.. they will do it so talking with him is definatly something I have to do but i have to be gentle about it. I am pretty blunt but i dont like being the bad guy so its hard for me to figure out how i am going to approach this but something needs to be done or ill lose members.

First: welcome to guild leading, especially with a new guild, if you're not getting grey hair from the stress, you're probably doing it wrong =P.

Second: Ya this officer probably isn't making things better for you honestly, but it also kind of depends on your guild philosophy and who you have in it. It takes a lot of very strong people and the willingness to have high turnover to have the "Troxxed" style person in your leadership structure. It was never my style and I always felt people did better when you helped them instead of berated them and called them bad. He's gonna cause drama and he probably thinks it's okay because it's the internet.

I had an RL friend that was an officer that got that way and I asked him to leave for our friendship, we both knew him being an officer was straining our friendship and he wasn't happy b/c he thought everyone was bad, so I told him to go somewhere he'd be happier and it ended up helping out both my guild and his and I's friendship.

One issue was splitting raid leader with your officer, I assume you all played good cop bad cop; what that does is weaken your authroity and strengthen his. If he's going to raid lead he raid leads and you follow, even if you'r GM. If you have an issue with him, take it up privately. Bascially, in raid he's the boss. I've learned this expansion with the guild I'm in that a good RL can make all the difference. Our RL was not our GM, but the GM was in raid and deferred to the RL; the only time she got involved was if the RL got too harsh; but it was never a direct rebuke of the RL, it was more a calm word of "everyone calm down, and so and so is trying we'll get this." In a tone that suggested it's a game and we're all good enough to get through this. However, if the RL felt someone needed to be replaced for underperfomance she never, and I mean never, challanged that decision and was supportive of it, going so far as to tell the replaced person, "don't worry about it, go practice your rotation, ask (gives name of member who is good at the class) for some help and I'm sure you'll down this next week with us."

That said, about 1/2 our raid is ex-military and the GM was a Drill Instructor, so there's some understanding of how to give and how to take shit.

Also, cutting dead wood early, is important. We had a player that we carried through FL and through H Madness and it makes for hard feelings from those that do the carrying. Seeing someone with a 400+ ilvl doing 8k hps on Heroic Spine does nothing but piss people off, especially when you run a loot council and BiS gear is going to that player.

As for the officer stuff. The RL is the RL in raid; outside of that he's just an officer and memeber and subject to your rules and your authority. However, if his job as an officer is to RL, then that's when he does. Other officers do other things. But as someone said, make rules and enforce them.

What's the age of your members? Are you an adult guild, do you have kids in it, etc. Makes a difference.