I could see the teacher thing, but in my experience, the best guild leaders are moms.

great point!

often the perception is that in order to lead, you have to be authoritative, demanding and dictatorial, but in fact those traits are usually short-term leadership qualities. teaching (without patronizing) has the bonus of establishing an authority, while also creating dialogue and encouraging questions. the best teams are the teams that don't point fingers but instead have each person aware of the fact they did *something* wrong and asking for help identifying what it was.

this is not to be mistaken for encouraging anyone to 'tell someone how to play their toon" (nothing annoys me more than when someone tries to tell me how to push buttons) but rather to draw the camera back to illustrate what was happening at the macro level and allowing a player to assert their own role and see where they messed up or missed out.

arming people with the knowledge of an encounter to encourage create problem solving is a supremely subtle and difficult task; but that's why being a leader is so hard. it's thankless and lonely and many times what you are trying to do longterm is, in the short term, misunderstood.

add to this the requirements of marking attendance, settling emo arguments, competing individual agendas, and one realizes that patience is, in the end, the ultimate two-edged weapon of a leader.

Damn right! My guild leader's an adorable middle aged mom, whose family is pretty much all into wow. They run a tight ship, we got Realm first lvl 25 guild thanks to a coordinated effort from all guildies!

@ niv

The problems with Moms are that they have children. Not just small children whom they wish to play with, but teen children, adult children whom they communicate with via Warcraft. This is an issue in that you have now joined a guild with a family dynamic, which means that at least two raid slots are permanently filled, expressing a concern to one member will reach all of them, and family disputes can ruin a guild's raiding instantly.

I'm saying this after being in three 'family guilds' in a row, and each one has been wonderful in its own way, but at the same time the most stressful experience I've had in-game. It's not for everyone, and I've learned it's not for me. Your guild are your friends, don't make them your family unless you can be sure that the family that plays together stays together.

agreed, mom's and teachers work as GM's cause we all act like kids in the game. LOL
My GM is a grandmom and a teacher, and she boxes, Batteries Not Included love ya Perse