Greek Living Leaders: Working the Final Company

 

Fraternities and sororities must operate as a company first, and a socialite second in order to be successful. I would like to point out some key concepts that report the relation between Greek organizations and businesses.

 

Greek organizations: 

• Divide officers into teams to focus on specific aspects of the chapter 

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

• Must market themselves well in order 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 report to, their national headquarters 

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

 

They're just a few points that report 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 running a Greek organization and must help every officer no real matter what team her position is a part of. My days are full of constantly making decisions and weighing the consequences. I discovered to produce fair decisions that benefit the more 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. For example, we had a small crisis with flyers that were made to advertise an event we were having. When 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 email address with the typo included.

 

An enormous section of managing a successful organization is effective and professional communication. Our main forum of communication between officers and the advisory board is emailing. I have learned how exactly 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 have learned to communicate concisely and format information in the most truly effective way. I have discovered providing information in bullet lists is the best way to obtain members to read messages fully. Our officers must hold team meetings and get reports of progress in the different areas on the team. Officers are accountable for organizing their particular 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 together with others.

 

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