President who doesn't have the time?
 

So I have a President who doesn't seem to have the time to do anything that outside of his job. For instance, I have not been able to sit down with him (I'm VP) to talk about what's going on with the chapter.

It's also frustrating because he delegates every single task onto me, many times I tell him "No, I can't do it" and in the end, I end up doing the task last minute because he refuses to delegate it to anyone else. Sometimes I am successful on delegating it to someone else, but that is rare.

It's gotten to the point where at a recent meeting, someone raised thier hand and said "Ok, so you're been philanthropy chair for the past 7 months and you haven't done a damn thing. Why don't you have someone else do it?" and his response was "I'll think about it." Also, there's a lot of contracdicting between me and him at the meetings which the chapter notices.

I try many times to get him to talk to me about things, but he always using the excuse "I have homework to do or study". Last week I attempted to talk to him while he was playing video game, but he then complained about not having time to relax and blah blah blah, which ended up with me saying "forget it, if you don't have williness to talk about things, it won't be a productive meeting."

So with that backstory, I'm here on the boards looking for suggestions/tips on the following things:

a) Getting him to sit down and have a proper conversation with me.
b) Having him realize that he can't be delegating every task to me.
c) Also have him realize that as an officer of the fraternity, he needs to sacrafice time to do his job.

Sounds like he doesn't need to be president.

Does your constitution or bylaws specify each officer's duties? Or do you all sign contracts when you take on an office? If he's not fulfilling his duties, he needs to resign or get impeached. Bring in alumni members (if possible) so that they can communicate the importance of dedicated officers.

Does he delegate tasks at meetings or at some other time (ex. phone or e-mail)? If it's during a meeting, you may want to take it upon yourself to delegate the work to other members (or committees, if you don't already have them).

Does your chapter host executive board meetings, or just general body meetings? If you only have the latter, get with the other officers to try setting up an "officers only" meeting. Since your president only seems to respond to "official" functions and request, having another "official" meeting might force him to make more time.

^^^ True, he should be delegating. It just shouldn't be to the same person all the time. The president should also be the one to take over when someone drops the ball/waits until the last minute, but it looks like the OP is the one handling that.

I don't know if this would be different in fraternties, but to me, the President should be controlling the main operations of the entire chapter... heading business meetings, dealing with National Staff and planning their visits, solving major chapter problems, conversing with Advisors and alumni/alumnae when necessary, etc.

You say he doesn't have the time to talk to you about the chapter. What exactly do you have to discuss? Just this situation? Or are there specific problems that need to be worked out?

What tasks is he passing on to you? Examples? If these things do actually fall under someone else's position, then explain that to them, not him. Because if he won't pass it on to anyone else, at least when you get it dumped in your lap, you can then pass it on to the appropriate person without question. Or explain to everyone collectively that you're having difficulty doing these things on your own and ask for some help. I know that some guys don't like doing that, but suck it up and ask.. otherwise, don't complain when everything comes back onto you. These people are your brothers.. I would hope they'd understand if you needed their help.

Also, over the years, if I've learned anything, I've learned this... the people who truly don't care can't be motivated. People get all kinds of things out of Greek life. Some people want a resume boost, some people want the full Greek experience, and a whole lot of people fall somewhere in between. I've seen members who show up to every meeting, are all about philanthropy, participate in all of the extra new member activities, but trying to get them to do any kind of fundraising is like pulling teeth. Some people recruit really well but they hate going to meetings. Some people do a little extra to help everyone else, they sit on every committee, but they only spend a half hour at a mixer before wanting to go home. Sometimes, in certain areas, you just have to cut your losses and realize that if you care enough, and have a few others that do too, that's all that matters. And I tend to think that you do, otherwise, you'd just let all of this stuff go without doing anything about it. Again, if you truly need help, ask for it. I'm sure there are at least a couple of guys who would be willing to step up.

I know that when I was active, I had 2 or 3 sisters that I would go to for help if I needed it. It didn't matter what needed to be done, I knew they'd say yes. And I'd do the same for them. I'm sure there are probably brothers who would be willing to do the same for you.

At the same time, if the chapter is noticing a major problem, it might be time to have a serious talk with the President. And not a "I need to talk to you" kind of thing, but, "The chapter feels this way, and it's bothering me, and if you're not willing to do something about it, I will." It might not be fun, but sometimes ultimatums are the only way to get people to pay attention. And if he is doing a VERY bad job, to the point where he's affecting overall chapter operations, or relationships within the Greek community on campus and/or with National Staff, then it definitely needs to be addressed. But I'm not sure that you're saying you're at that extreme...

And question.. how long has the President had this position? Is he new to the whole thing, or has this been going on for a while?

Good point. If he's new, he may just need formal training.

OP: Does your chapter have an officer transition workshop?

This isn't delegating, this is ignoring your duties and pushing them on to the second in command. The VP should not have the task of re-delegating (for lack of a better word).

I agree...the Vice President is not the President Assistant. To the OP, you may want to check your fraternity's guidelines for officers. I know that each officer position in AOII has a distinct set of responsibilities, and I'd bet that your fraternity does as well. You may want to copy the job descriptions of each officer and hand them all to the president, as well as the corresponding description to each officer. It's a little less than subtle way to tell him that it's not your job to do his job.

Thanks for the help everyone.

He has been in office for about 7 months and he knows what he's suppose to be doing.

There are many things I'm still trying to get him to talk about including issues on Recruitment, a pending housing change, the lack of service hours we need to get, the list goes on and on.

That's exactly how I feel. In fact today he came into my room and said "I don't feel like going to the meeting this Friday, can you go for me instead?" I responded that it was his responsibility to go to the meeting and then he was saying how boring it was to him. How would anyone respond to that?

I've been taking the advice of this board and my Greek advisor to help me in this situation. He still has the attitude of not caring and still is dumping everything onto me, but at least I've finally gotten him to sit down and talk with me (with the help of my greek advisor.) and finally know for sure that he knows that what he is doing is wrong and that he should take up more of the slack because I'm supose to make sure officers are doing thier jobs but right now I'm too busy doing his job that I can't do my job. I'm still waiting to see if he actually does any picking up the slack.

To play devil's advocate ... many organizations require that the president work as a liason with the national office/headquarters. There could be a lot that he is doing for your chapter behind the scenes that you are not aware of because you are not in that position of responsibility.

Also, couldn't many of the topics you need to discuss be done during a regularly scheduled executive board meeting? If he is as lousy of a president as you make him out to be, there are probably other officers that would require the same discussion time for their topics. Discussing chapter issues amoung all of your exec board could help to present a unified front to your chapter membership.

Finally, this type of conflict is going to happen to you a lot in post-college "real life". I agree that you should continue to seek help but please realize that whining about other's lack of responsibility will not ease the burden you agree to place upon yourself.

The president ALSO needs to realize though that when someone else screws up, it's the presidents head on the line. They should delegate tasks to the APPROPRIATE officer, not the same one every time and they should definitely make time to at least discuss with their VP issues before a chapter meeting. I can understand not having time for every person's complaints, but the VP needs to have a good line of communication with the president.

I agree that it sounds like he doesn't need to be president, but since he is, maybe there is a way to have a discussion involving your executive council WITHOUT it becoming accusatory or a bitch fest...like writing down specific complaints in a professional way before the meeting and promising to stick to them. It needs to be a small group of people that can focus on what they need from each other more than on accusations. If the personalities of your officers don't allow for that (it wouldn't work in my current chapter for example), short of cornering this guy, it sounds like you're just in a bad situation and should maybe start a countdown until the day when you can run for president and undo any damage his neglect has done.