Recently, I’ve been under a lot of pressure. I think my mind is fraying. I keep focusing on the consequences of what negative people are doing to my guild, parsing through what people say to figure out how much they themselves are upset and how much heir upset is enflamed by other negative people. I start worrying more about how to keep these negative people happy, so they don’t create more drama, instead of how to do right by the majority of my guild. 

Xavius, the last boss, was a time when this came to a head. Many of the decisions I made during Xavius was more about trying to not upset a couple potential troublemakers, rather than doing what my principles require and what’s best for the guild. I was already frazzled by a negative player leaving the guild the day before, and before doing that complaining so much to one of my officers he lost a lot of trust in me (the second officer this player, with others, has done that to). Then, I’ve had healers becoming very clique-y, making other people feel excluded and disliked, and knowing they’re doing this but apparently not caring, and also being so negative others wonder if they are too unhappy to stay. On top of that, I had died maybe 2, 3 times earlier that night during the second to last boss cenarius, and at least 2 of them were my fails. Even if my damage is low I usually manage to still be extremely survivable and do very well on mechanics, so that I normally do not feel like a burden to my raid group. But that night I failed twice, maybe thrice. And worst, I had problems with my game (my weakauras tracking my resources wasn’t working :(), making it extremely difficult to do what I needed to do to damage the boss well. With all this in the background, an event happened that upset me so much, I was either close to tears or in tears during a good half hour when I was supposed to lead my raid.

People were making a mistake that I felt was easy to avoid making. Assigned people had 5 seconds to get to a particular spot, and stand in particular beams of light, at specific timings during the boss fight. People were missing it. Not making it. For 5 seconds they couldn’t get to where they needed to go, even though it takes at most 3 seconds from where most were standing. If people didn’t get in, we all died. So the next time it was going to happen, I said “DON’T mess up this time”. Then, I was standing next to one but outside of it, and the person who was supposed to be in the light was in, but for some reason I was chosen instead of the person it was supposed to choose. And then one of my players said immediately (5 seconds after I told everyone to not mess up), “but YOU just messed up!”. It was just a small event, and people have every right to call me out if I fail. The problem is I didn’t mess up that time, but my explanation could be no better than “I swear that I was fine, it must be a problem with the animation”. Sounds like an excuse doesn’t it? Sounds like I just made a demand of people, insinuating they were messing up on something far too easy, then I messed up, then I gave some trumped up stupid excuse for it instead of owning up. I feel it’s extremely important for a leader to show she’s willing to admit her mistakes. I think this situation put me in a light where I felt that I was more a tyrant than a leader worthy of respect. 

So things, for me, began to snowball out of control and I lost my judgement for the rest of that half hour to an hour. And though the above situation only portrayed me in a light where I seemed to be a bad leader, my lapses in judgement after that were truly incidences of bad leadership. 

First of all, I was so upset by feeling that my raiders needed to call me out the way they did, and wondering if this meant that in my raiders’ minds, I was a burden they had to carry simply because I was their tyrant raid leader, that I basically stopped raid leading for a few pulls. I stopped making callouts, I stopped analyzing mistakes after fights. Then I started crying a bit. God so retarded. Then, I pulled myself back together enough to make some callouts again, but I didn’t make any effort to mask how upset I was, and plenty of people noticed i was feeling down, even if no one knew I was crying. Probably job number 1 of a leader is to keep morale up. I did the opposite there. For what? For my personal emotions? Since when have my emotions been more important than the good of the guild? Even when my father died, even when I found out someone I loved had lied to me for a year, even when I was sick and had a high fever, I had never EVER allowed my personal problems to affect my raid groups. And this??? This little eansy weansy baby setback?? For this, I stopped doing one of the most important of my jobs as a raid leader???? I still am in shock over how I could have allowed that to happen.

Second, one of our healers had been doing badly all night. On xavius it was especially prominent, he missed the light beam about half the times he was supposed to go. Each time anyone misses we all pretty much die. It’s ok for people to have bad nights, but I really should have sat him. I had healers on the bench who would have and could have come in. But, he was the one who called me out in that  fashion. He is also our healing officer. He is the person whom I should rely on to keep things going well in the healing group, and to not let negative people get out of hand and create toxicity or lower morale too much. I didn’t sit him. I was afraid to sit him. I was afraid it would stir up more drama in the healing circle, and they would become even more negative and he would no longer be willing to try to keep things constructive. I was afraid, since he was the one who called me out like that, that he was one of those in whose minds I was a burden to carry. And I was afraid that by sitting him it would turn him against me. I have dealt with sitting some of the people I care the most for in game, and like the most. I have gotten sick because I did that and it upset them so much they almost stopped being friends with me, and that in turn upset me so much I got sick. I have never let fears of a personal backlash hold me back from sitting someone who should have been sat. And therefore I have always been able to say with complete honesty that we go by a pure meritocracy. But this was not an instance of meritocracy. It was the opposite. I allowed the needs and desires of a few, negative people, to dictate how I made decisions in that half to one hour. After this, I barely know how to face my raiders again. I wonder, how do they trust me to be just, to be fair again?

My last lapse of judgement is how I ended that night. We could have finished. Finishing that night would have made our ranks much higher, since we wouldn’t have to wait another 3 days to finish the instance, when we obviously could finish it much earlier if it weren’t for my bad leadership. I should have made everyone stay later. I didn’t because of that healer and one other player who, whenever we extend, gets really really upset. To the point where the people she complains to will tell the whole raid that “there are people who don’t want to be here”. I could have chosen to let her go and bring in the healers on the bench, who would’ve performed perfectly well. But I was worried that extending the times would upset her whether or not I replaced her with someone. And I am decently confident that once she is upset, she will have no problems complaining to anyone she’s close to and turning them against me. I feel she is not the type of person who tries to avoid influencing one person against another. So, as with the healer officer above, I let her desires dictate my decisions with what to do as a group. 

Wow, writing this is tiring and upsetting, even if I feel it helps me release the feelings. Just overall, I am ashamed of how I led that night. I’ve discussed apologizing to my guild, but the advice I’ve gotten was that it would lower morale or create the precise guild drama that I was trying to avoid. So no luck trying to do penance that way. The best that I can get out of this, according to the advice and what I can see, is to take good note of my mistakes, and make sure it never, ever happens again in the future. 

Ganbarre, watashi!!!!!!!