The first time we confronted our national officer was during recruitment. She and a visiting officer, as well as the woman she reports to, came to our chapter to help us with recruitment. It was an absolute nightmare. They changed everything last minute, completely ran every single workshop, and would not listen to chapter suggestions when we were unhappy with how things were running. I think the visiting officers realized our officer hadn't prepared us for recruitment as she should have and they kind of went into intense control mode to make up for it. After they were all consistently rude to us, wouldn't listen to our advice (since we know our campus culture), and continuously bashed our Greek Life office, I had had enough. I approached the Exec board about my concerns, realized morale within the chapter was low, and the Exec board agreed it needed to be addressed before the second weekend. We sat down with the two officers (the woman who they report to was out of town when we met with them unfortunately, but she was just as bad) and expressed our concerns. We talked to them about how we felt our opinions weren't being heard, we didn't have a say in how we were representing our chapter, chapter morale was low because of this, how we didn't appreciate the rude comments about our Greek community on our campus, and how we feared we would not be able to stand on our own due to them taking over and doing everything, as opposed to teaching. The visiting national officer was very receptive, told us she was not offended, and definitely improved the next weekend. Our officer on the other hand got very emotional. She was borderline on tears and told us it was very hard for her to step back and assume a more "mentoring" role from now on. She said, "I don't want you to forget about me." and has said this many times since. While she improved slightly during recruitment, things got worse when she was on her own again.
The second time I approached her was on my own. I expressed to her my frustrations of being out of the loop, of not being involved in certain aspects of the chapter, and my concern of not being able to have our chapter stand on our own if she kept doing things for us. This remark was received with hostility. From my perspective, she acted like I was out of line. And maybe I was? What do I know.
I then brought this up to my executive board privately. While half of them agreed with me and supported my decision to confront her, they were unwilling to do it themselves. The other half tried to politely show their disagreement, but from what it seemed like, I felt that they thought I was the problem. One of my officers said she felt that this was just a "power struggle" and our national officer was the "expert", so we should just let her be. I personally just don't think they realize how much of an impact she has, because she does not affect their jobs as much as she affects mine and I have had a hard time trying to express this to them.
Soon after, the Panhellenic President also sent her an e-mail asking her to please take a more observatory role with our chapter from here on out. Although I had expressed my concern to the Panhellenic President, I did not ask her to send this e-mail, she did that because she thought it was in our best interest. Previously, our national officer had attended all Panhel meetings and would even speak on my behalf. She still attends, but has since stopped speaking during the meetings. Although, she does communicate things to say to our delegate that I usually have no knowledge of.
Finally, we recently brought up with her an issue on communication. We, as an executive board, told her that any decisions that were to be made, possible events, apparel, anything, needed to come to the whole executive board (and possibly the chapter) before any decisions were to be made. She agreed happily, but has sense appointed an Apparel chair without any approval, sent out potential apparel designs to the chapter without us seeing them, communicated with a New Member who dropped (and has yet to officially inform me), and planned an event for seniors spontaneously.
At this point, I don't know what to do. We wanted new member executive positions, I found out through the grapevine after a new member had expressed interested to me that she had just decided no. When confronted, she refused to budge on this. We had someone approach us about a service event at a clinic on Friday. We wanted to do this and another one on Saturday to maximize opportunities for members to go (since many have class on Friday) and she refused to let us do that, even though everyone wanted to. Our event planner has failed miserably at her job, and after we have approached her many times and not seen improvement, she still will not let us release her from her position or even elect anyone to help her. This has caused so many issues for our chapter. Events are falling through because of miscommunications and our members are SO unhappy about it. Last minute events keep popping up because she e-mails us details last minute that we had no idea about. Members are complaining about disorganization and what they see as random decisions by exec, but it is not entirely us. Members are complaining about having no say in chapter bylaws that I, as Chapter President, have not even seen! At this point, I just want to scream!
We do have an advisory committee though my counterpoint seems just about as out of the loop as I am. I have contacted her a few times but she is slow in responding. My main contact point is our Greek Life Director, who is definitely on my side. He always tells me that I need to do what is best for the chapter, that I don't have to do what my national officer says all the time, and I just need to make decisions when need be. But I find it so hard to just blatantly go against her. So many of the girls in our chapter see her as a leader because she was when we were all 'new members'. I don't think they have transitioned to seeing me as the President/go to point for questions and concerns. And honestly, I'm not even sure I'd know what to do if I was because she does everything for me!
Sorry, I feel like I am rambling. I hope that makes sense.