Leadership 101
Many things in life and politics come in 3's and 7's - leadership comes in pairs. Leadership is based on maintaining control - or an illusion of it at the very least. Control is maintained through either loyalty or fear. Any system that finds itself in the middle will either crumble at its own hands to internal discord, or gravitate to one extreme or the other. This is why socialism does not work. (Canada, take note!) This concept presents itself to me daily at work - my manager relies on fear to control his employees, and while it works for those working full-time to pay their bills it fails miserably to our part-time workers who are all high school students who only want the job as some extra spending cash. He relies on the fear of losing their job to keep control of them, but the job is more or less disposable to them as school is their primary focus and they have monetary support from their parents. Likewise, my assistant manager relies on camaraderie to exercise control - he makes people want to do their job because none of us wants to incur our manager's wrath.
Identifying the appropriate approach to take is crucial due to the extreme opposites the two styles represent - using the wrong approach ends inevitably in failure. Obviously, this choice on the internet is simple, there is no fear. You ultimately have no control over anyone on the internet due to the inherent anonymity of it. The illusion of fear can be created, but its effectiveness is still much less. The only effective way to lead is to make people want to do what you say, or adjust want you want from them accordingly.
While many just discounted him as a fun-loving goofball, Mathias was a genius in this regard. He recognized that a single person is reasonable, but a mob is fickle. He did his best to treat each member as an individual, to make himself approachable for any member with a concern they wanted addressed. We were not the 40-member body of ArchDominus, we were 40 individuals - each with our own personalities, expectations, and goals - who came together under one banner to achieve a common goal. Our loyalty lied as much with him as much as it did to the linkshell and each other, but one was never mistaken for the other. Mistaking this loyalty is a fatal flaw in leadership - mistaking loyalty to a leader leads to indecision and impotency, mistaking loyalty to a common goal results in abuse and distrust.
We could all afford to take a page from his book.
Identifying the appropriate approach to take is crucial due to the extreme opposites the two styles represent - using the wrong approach ends inevitably in failure. Obviously, this choice on the internet is simple, there is no fear. You ultimately have no control over anyone on the internet due to the inherent anonymity of it. The illusion of fear can be created, but its effectiveness is still much less. The only effective way to lead is to make people want to do what you say, or adjust want you want from them accordingly.
While many just discounted him as a fun-loving goofball, Mathias was a genius in this regard. He recognized that a single person is reasonable, but a mob is fickle. He did his best to treat each member as an individual, to make himself approachable for any member with a concern they wanted addressed. We were not the 40-member body of ArchDominus, we were 40 individuals - each with our own personalities, expectations, and goals - who came together under one banner to achieve a common goal. Our loyalty lied as much with him as much as it did to the linkshell and each other, but one was never mistaken for the other. Mistaking this loyalty is a fatal flaw in leadership - mistaking loyalty to a leader leads to indecision and impotency, mistaking loyalty to a common goal results in abuse and distrust.
We could all afford to take a page from his book.