Guild Drama And How to Solve it
I have been asked multiple times “How is it that you have so many members but claim to have no drama?” The answer is simple: We just don’t have guild drama! Shockingly enough I can go off my Guild Master toon or toons in the guild for long periods of time & come to find my members still there…without any reports of guild drama. This is not an exaggeration either.
Some guild drama is perfectly okay and healthy to have in a guild. If you want to keep the guild social as such you may have the occasional debate about what class is better. This is perfectly okay and healthy. The trick is curbing it if it turns into more, like bullying, name-calling, and people threatening to leave the guild.
How to solve guild drama & even attempt to keep it out of your guild is what we will discuss today.
Structure
Look at your guild as your home and your guild members as your children. Would you let your children do anything they wanted? Or would you have rules? Doing anything they want does not include dictating the type of play they have, for instance, you can’t make a non-raider raid if they don’t want to, or a pvper level if they don’t want to. But you do need rules. For instance, do you want your raiders putting down the non-raiders? If not, then that needs to be in the rules. In fact, you can have a non-raider in a raiding guild or a raider in a leveling guild, it’s a matter of the structure and rules.
Good leadership
You need to have officers with a wide range of times online. As a guild leader, you might choose a couple of officers who can be on overnight while you and your daytime officers are sleeping. You might choose a couple of daytime officers who don’t work during the day or who don’t have a job, you might have a couple night time officers. This ensures that officers are online at all times, or at least someone high enough ranking. This can help curve any issues or rule breaks that happen right away.
Asserting your own Authority
You need to have consequences or disciplinary action in place, make sure the guild members are aware of the consequences, and that you are not afraid to assert those. If you tell someone “How you are acting is unacceptable. This is your warning, if you do it again you will be demoted for 2 weeks” Then follow through with it and make sure your officers are aware. Make sure that you do not give idle threats, so if you say you will demote someone then act upon it. Otherwise, you will undermine your own authority and you can not have that.
Listen
To be a good leader, you also need to know when to listen. Sometimes you have to get feedback, for instance, a member comes to you and says “I disagree with how you disciplined Poohbear” Then you find out why, and take it into consideration. Listen to your guild members, this does not mean you have to take all their suggestions, but at least listen and discuss them. In the end, it is still your guild and it is up to you how you run things.
Love
You want your members to love you. Love is earned through trust. You need to chat with your members, and show them who you are in a non-leadership position. Help them out, and gain their trust. Gain their love which would make them want to stay.
Dealing With Conflict
If there is a conflict, you need to get both sides of the story and then make an informed decision on who you felt is at fault and how to handle the situation at hand. Sometimes, they might even just need a simple mediator to help them work things out to lessen the conflict currently going on. Also, utilize screenshots. In the he said/she said situation, screenshots will be your best friend.
You may always run into drama, especially in bigger guilds. The real trick is how you handle them as an officer or a guild leader. It can get worse, or it can get better, you decide how it goes. What is your best tip for squashing guild drama in your guild?
