Alan Watts had some interesting takes on gurus. Basically he was of the opinion that you only need a guru as long as you think you need a guru. There are many people who will not accept something unless it comes to them from some sort of authority. They believe they need to follow some kind of path. Go through "stages". Because they believe that suffering and effort is good for them. And so for these kind of people, nothing but a guru will do for them. They will insist on a guru. And so for Alan Watts, a real guru will lead the seeker down a path of ultimately realising that the process of "seeking" is futile and that the seeker will attain enlightenment when they realise they don't need the guru anymore because they were nondual with the guru and all of existence.

Sadly most self proclaimed gurus seem to care more about personal power than actually helping people reach enlightenment. Because from the perspective of nonduality, the idea of hierarchy is laughable.