Greek Living Leaders: Operating the Ultimate Organization

[MikePaine]

Many may only see collegiate Greek life as a cultural group who hides their partying behind community service hours and charitable donations. However, I want to challenge that stereotype by focusing on the professional development and self-improvement opportunity that is presented to Greek life members - especially those who hold leadership positions. Currently, I serve my one-hundred member sorority as chapter president and work with other officers to maintain a well-balanced, structured, and involved organization.

Fraternities and sororities must operate as a company first, and a ελλαδα ειδησεισ σημερα socialite second to be able to be successful. I would really like to point out some key concepts that show the relation between Greek organizations and businesses.

Greek organizations: 

• Divide officers into teams to work on specific areas of the chapter 

• Must operate on a strict budget, fueled solely from member's dues 

• Must market themselves well to be able to continue to recruit new members 

• Have mission statements and values to carry their members to and gear their brand 

• Must follow rules from, and are accountable to, their national headquarters 

• Have insurance to cover their organization and its members, as well as many policies and procedures in area for holding events

They are just a few points that show how Greek organizations are ran as the best business, combining friendship with professionalism and offering members a great opportunity for private development.

As president, I see all sides of owning a Greek organization and must help every officer no real matter what team her position is really a part of. My days are filled with constantly making decisions and weighing the consequences. I have discovered to create fair decisions that benefit the greater good, while remaining unbiased in the process. I also answer to everyone's questions and concerns while problem solving when an unplanned event takes place. As an example, we'd a tiny crisis with flyers which were made to promote an event we were having. If they came in, we noticed the contact email on the flyers was spelled wrong. After some deliberation, we made a decision to use the flyers we had and made a new current email address with the typo included.

A massive part of running a successful organization is effective and professional communication. Our main forum of communication between officers and the advisory board is emailing. I have discovered how to properly send and react to emails in an expert manner. My communication skills have improved substantially since being fully a leader of my chapter. I discovered to communicate concisely and format information in the most truly effective way. I have found providing information in bullet lists is the greatest way to obtain members to see messages fully. All of our officers must hold team meetings and get reports of progress in the various areas on their team. Officers are accountable for organizing their own meetings and taking minutes to record that which was discussed. Greek organizations teach members to effectively and professionally communicate through emailing, holding meetings, and working with others.

One of the very valuable traits that I am still learning through my presidency, is getting more comfortable with hard conversations. I work closely with our Director of Standards and Ethics to ensure our members are holding themselves to our high ideals and values. When someone is falling behind, it is our job to possess conversations using them about why that is happening and what we can do to be sure it generally does not happen again. These tough conversations become even tougher when remembering that the members of our chapter are also our friends and sisters. As a leader of a Greek organization, I'm understanding how to have these hard conversations while staying in control of myself and the conversation.

Greek life has so much more to supply than the social aspect of the organization, and can truly prepare young adults to become listed on the professional world. Through developing members personally, and developing officers professionally, Greek organizations can provide life-changing collegiate experiences that can't be found elsewhere.