Future President

[skylark]

I agree that you can't be afraid to make decisions (inaction is worse than action sometimes) but unless there is a timeliness issue, involve the chapter with whatever "decision" you are making. If you force the chapter into something you think is a good idea, chances are that the chapter will just change right back after your mere year is over. So what do you do? Use your influence to truly persuade people individually that change is necessary (if that is your situation). That is a mistake I made as a chapter president. If I was to do it all over again, these would be my goals:

1. Keep an outwardly positive attitude.

2. Have more frequent meetings with the recruitment chair and be her right-hand sister. Practice what I preach as far as recruitment goes and not let myself think that my role as president superceded my role as a chapter member and to get out and recruit quality girls.

3. Be honest and up front with anyone who is causing a problem and don't be afraid to talk about things that are awkward. Never delegate this, either.

4. Realize that sometimes as chapter president you feel like the person with the least faith in sisterhood. Your "friends" in the chapter might start to see you differently and you may lose those friends in the end, but don't let that affect your belief in sisterhood and the group as a whole. When you lose faith, so does everyone else.

5. A sorority chapter is not a business and you are not there to teach more irresponsible members how to follow through, not procrastinate, etc. Some people will be like that their entire lives and it is not up to you to teach them that if they can't get X turned in on time that X will not happen. Be flexible and always ask yourself what is best for the chapter in the end.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by skylark

5. A sorority chapter is not a business and you are not there to teach more irresponsible members how to follow through, not procrastinate, etc. Some people will be like that their entire lives and it is not up to you to teach them that if they can't get X turned in on time that X will not happen. Be flexible and always ask yourself what is best for the chapter in the end.

I very much disagree with this one. A sorority chapter IS a business, and it is a VERY good time to learn the lessons that will help them when they get out in the "real" world. The sorority experience starts exactly like a job, with an interview, which in sorority terms is rush. You hold business meetings that everyone is expected to attend. You set budgets and goals and have deadlines and turn in reports. The only difference is that the sorority's "product" is a social organization, as opposed to marketable services or goods. I do agree, however, that there will be people that procrastinate their entire lives, and someone will have to pick up the slack, but again...no different that the "real world".

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I very much disagree with this one. A sorority chapter IS a business, and it is a VERY good time to learn the lessons that will help them when they get out in the "real" world. The sorority experience starts exactly like a job, with an interview, which in sorority terms is rush. You hold business meetings that everyone is expected to attend. You set budgets and goals and have deadlines and turn in reports. The only difference is that the sorority's "product" is a social organization, as opposed to marketable services or goods. I do agree, however, that there will be people that procrastinate their entire lives, and someone will have to pick up the slack, but again...no different that the "real world".

I VERY MUCH agree -- SigKap, listen to AlphaFrog! She is dead on on this.

[AOII Angel]

I agree as well. At some of the larger greek schools, the yearly chapter budget tops a million dollars. The president gets a real world look into what it takes to run a company!

[KSUViolet06]

* Don't get dragged into the drama/gossip of the chapter. As president, you are expected to be above that and not perpetuate any rumors/gossip/etc you might hear from other sisters.

*Set a good example. You can't ask sisters to follow policies and suggestions that you don't follow yourself.

*Understand that you're going to make some decisions that won't be popular with everyone. For example, you might have to cancel a social event that everyone was looking foward to, because of problems with Risk Management paperwork (that could potentially cause problems ffor the chapter). Just remember that what everyone might "want", might not be best for the chapter.

*Be knowledgeable about the other chapter offices and the responsibilities of each position.

[skylark]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I do agree, however, that there will be people that procrastinate their entire lives, and someone will have to pick up the slack, but again...no different that the "real world".

My comment about a sorority not being like a business is focused on this point that Alphafrog and I both agree on. I agree with her comparisons that sororities ARE like businesses in other ways.

My main point is that in business, if someone isn't carrying their weight they get fired or disciplined. I tried to instill increased accountability as chapter president and it backfired into lowering morale and in the end, the same people were accountable and the same people were unaccountable. Unsuccessful ways of doing this were: not letting officers add last minute things to nightly agenda meetings because it is supposed to be pre-approved by executive council; refusing to fax paperwork for an event to headquarters because an officer ALWAYS turned in the paperwork at the last minute (2-3 days before the event) instead of weeks in advance so that HQ can review it; refusing to delay a committee meeting 10-15 minutes because half the committee shows up late. Positive reinforcement (recognizing the people who do their job well) only worked so much... so as chapter president I initially thought that if you just refused to cooperate and clean up after others' irresponsibility that eventually people would learn to be punctual and responsible. I wish that instead I would have focused on other things entirely during that first semester of being President because it zapped so much of my energy putting out the hurt feelings it caused and I doubt it improved the chapter at all.

If you (or AlphaFrog) can think of ways to get people to be more accountable without doing lowering morale, that is great -- please share because I'd love to pass anything on to the chapter now that I am an advisor.

[FSUZeta]

[QUOTE=skylark;1534774

My main point is that in business, if someone isn't carrying their weight they get fired or disciplined. I tried to instill increased accountability as chapter president and it backfired into lowering morale and in the end, the same people were accountable and the same people were unaccountable. If you (or AlphaFrog) can think of a way to get people to be more accountable without doing this, that is great, but I couldn't ever do it.[/QUOTE]

putting them in charge of planning and implementing an event can sometimes get thru to them. they begin to understand how much work planning and event takes and how good it feels when people participate in an event that they have planned(or how bad you feel when you do all this work and participation is minimal).

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by skylark

My comment about a sorority not being like a business is focused on this point that Alphafrog and I both agree on. I agree with her comparisons that sororities ARE like businesses in other ways.

My main point is that in business, if someone isn't carrying their weight they get fired or disciplined. I tried to instill increased accountability as chapter president and it backfired into lowering morale and in the end, the same people were accountable and the same people were unaccountable. If you (or AlphaFrog) can think of a way to get people to be more accountable without doing this, that is great, but I couldn't ever do it.

Our chapter didn't hesitate to pull people out of postions (including Exec) who were not doing their job. Yes, those people probably got pissed, but we were a small chapter and couldn't afford to have officers not pulling their weight. Also, it IS the President's job to designate, but that doesn't mean that those officers can't designate further down the line. Not to say that you should get someone to do your job FOR you, but if you're the Rush chair, and you need to cut out 200 Dove nametags by tomorrow, and you've also got a physics test and an english paper due, it IS ok to pass the task on to someone else, rather than screwing yourself or it just not getting done. That would be a suggestion for the President to bring up at exec, or with a person privately who's not getting their job done. Something along the lines of "Rhonda Rushchair, why was there no maroon punch? If you don't have time to go to the store, it's OK to ask another sister to do it for you. We are all here to help you."

[skylark]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

Our chapter didn't hesitate to pull people out of postions (including Exec) who were not doing their job. Yes, those people probably got pissed, but we were a small chapter and couldn't afford to have officers not pulling their weight.

I think this is an excellent point. How small of a chapter were you? I think the reason we never did this was because we had too many officers for the amount of people in the sorority and most had at least 2 offices already and so electing to remove people from office would have meant someone else in the chapter would have had to pick up a 3rd office. Just one more problem in chapters that is solved by having good numbers... (sigh)

[AlphaFrog]

We were around 30. And yes, at some point we had people in 2 exec offices AND a chair or officer position. But, that's where the designation comes in...one person doesn't have time to do all of that themselves, but most could get the sisters who weren't responsible enough to have the postion themselves to do things to help out.

ETA: SigKapChatter - it sounds like you DO have good numbers, so DO NOT let a sister sit in a postion and not do her job. Yes, that girl will probably be pissed when she gets kicked out of office, but it's better than letting the rest of the chapter get pissed at her for things not getting done (and you for letting her not do her job). Her pride will heal faster then the rest of the chapter's resentment.

[Tom Earp]

Passing the gavel can cause a lot of problems.

While what is said is to stay in the room with no hard feelings is not true.

The Human ego will not let that happen and it can fester into a bigger problem than is wanted or needed.

It is true, that if a person is not doing thier job, then sit down with them and discuss it with them. If that doesn't work, the total chapter knows and it will become a hardship on the chapter. If that is the case, they need to be removed for the betterment.

[skylark]

Originally Posted by skylark

My main point is that in business, if someone isn't carrying their weight they get fired or disciplined. I tried to instill increased accountability as chapter president and it backfired into lowering morale and in the end, the same people were accountable and the same people were unaccountable. Unsuccessful ways of doing this were: not letting officers add last minute things to nightly agenda meetings because it is supposed to be pre-approved by executive council; refusing to fax paperwork for an event to headquarters because an officer ALWAYS turned in the paperwork at the last minute (2-3 days before the event) instead of weeks in advance so that HQ can review it; refusing to delay a committee meeting 10-15 minutes because half the committee shows up late. Positive reinforcement (recognizing the people who do their job well) only worked so much... so as chapter president I initially thought that if you just refused to cooperate and clean up after others' irresponsibility that eventually people would learn to be punctual and responsible. I wish that instead I would have focused on other things entirely during that first semester of being President because it zapped so much of my energy putting out the hurt feelings it caused and I doubt it improved the chapter at all.

So this portion was an added edit a couple minutes ago.. I assumed that my edit would copy before the last two people read the comment or responded... sorry! Next time I will just respond again instead of assuming no one is reading the post yet.

[SigKapChatter]

Originally Posted by skylark

2. Have more frequent meetings with the recruitment chair and be her right-hand sister. Practice what I preach as far as recruitment goes and not let myself think that my role as president superceded my role as a chapter member and to get out and recruit quality girls.

Is there anything specifically that would make more frequent meetings with the recruitment chair helpful? Is it to ensure that progress has been made so that Work Week and Recruitment are less stressful? Or that we are on the same page for the kind of members we wanna recruit and how we can improve our strategy as a chapter for recruiting those girls? Something else?

[skylark]

Originally Posted by SigKapChatter

Is there anything specifically that would make more frequent meetings with the recruitment chair helpful? Is it to ensure that progress has been made so that Work Week and Recruitment are less stressful? Or that we are on the same page for the kind of members we wanna recruit and how we can improve our strategy as a chapter for recruiting those girls? Something else?

I think the point of having more frequent meetings is so that there is good communication between the two offices. Many years it seemed like the Pres. and Recruitment chair were operating on different wavelengths with very different ideas about how to achieve certain goals. Think how much stronger two dedicated officers can be when you're focusing and prioritizing the same things! Is the priority goal to have more publicity about the chapter for the next recruitment? Is the priority goal to have better events planned? Is the priority goal to have a better recruitment workshop to help make chit chat less awkward? In an ideal world, we'd do everything, but the reality is that there need to be priorities and I think that the recruitment chair and president should make sure they are supporting eachother rather than zapping steam and chapter involvement from what the other officer sees as important, too.