I made this response to Heazy, the clan leader of Australia (a Diablo Immortal clan I’m a member of). I put a bit of effort into it so I thought I’d post it here too.
I’ve spent a lot of my career founding, building and running communities and I’m no stranger to either having to hand over leadership or terminate communities, so I’m more than happy to give my input here.
I think you have a lot of great leadership qualities Heazy; you’re welcoming, approachable, empathetic and you generally have a positive attitude. You involve the members when it comes to making decisions, you’re respectful of others and you’re active on this discord.
Life and leadership are 2 completely different things though. We all know life can get in the way but as a leader you’ve got to have a plan for when it does, so it’s great to see you take action on this.
IMHO being able to see the bigger picture and nailing delegation are massive parts of being a good leader. Your in-game level or stats have nothing to do with whether or not you’re a good leader (there’s always going to be someone else out there with higher stats, or more free time to play the game). Whales, casuals, they all come and go.
I think there’s a LOT to learn from what went down with The Bearded Ninjas, as well as the strongest Australia clan members leaving to join an Immortal clan when we didn’t win Immortality. We have to be aware that Blizzard has designed a game system that encourages hostility, clan wars, clan hopping, naming and shaming and more general negativity. The bigger picture suggests that we’re all into the same game, the even bigger picture suggests that we’re all into gaming and thus a lot more potentially like-minded than we realise.
I like that this discord community is called Guys & Girls Gaming (GG&G). Within minutes of being a part of this community I noticed that there were indeed a mix of both guys and girls on here (I love that). I also appreciate that there’s a level of maturity and acceptance on here. IE: I’ve read (and been a part of) some heated debates and discussions where not everyone agreed or understood each other, but hey that’s life and it goes without saying that it would be near impossible to have everyone in a community agree with each other at all times.
I love that some people on this discord are from other clans. IMHO that fits the G&GG concept. IE: It’s about guys and girls gaming, not guys and girls playing Diablo Immortal. If Diablo Immortal dies it would be a real shame for this community to also die.
End of the day Heazy, as a leader you have to be passionate about what you do. If you’re no longer excited about your role and responsibilities, nor gain energy from motivating community members then 100% maybe stepping down is worth thinking about, but I think it’s early days, and delegation of roles (maybe making new community roles to reward members who do grind all day as well as whales who put their money in etc.) could be a really solid step forwards.
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