The elders in our hall used to mainly fall into two categories; the 'big fish in a small pool' type, people who hadn't really achieved much in life, but by being an elder had the ability to wield power and judgement. The orher type were the arse lickers, the sycophantic type who would do the bidding of the alpha elders.
There were exceptions, a couple I can think of that were really nice people but they were generally the exception that proved the rule.
The rank and file witnesses were generally pretty nice people, no different from a subset of any people really.