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 people who hold leadership positions. Currently, I serve my one-hundred member sorority as chapter president and assist other officers to maintain a well-balanced, structured, and involved organization.

Fraternities and sororities must operate as a company first, and a socialite second in order to be successful. I would like to indicate some key concepts that report 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 steadily to recruit new members 
• Have mission statements and values to put up 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, as well as many policies and procedures in place for holding events

They're just a couple points that show how Greek organizations are ran as the ultimate business, combining friendship with professionalism and offering members a good opportunity for personal development.

As president, I see all sides of owning a Greek organization and must help every officer no matter what team her position is a part of. My days are full of constantly making decisions and weighing the consequences. I discovered to make fair decisions that benefit the higher good, while remaining unbiased in the process. I also reply to everyone's questions and concerns while problem solving when an unplanned event takes place. As an example, we'd a small crisis with flyers which were made to market 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'd and made a fresh email address with the typo included.

An enormous element of managing a successful organization is beneficial and professional communication. Our main forum of communication between officers and the advisory board is emailing. I have learned how to properly send and answer emails in a professional manner. My communication skills have improved substantially since being truly a leader of my chapter. I have learned to communicate concisely and format information in the most 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 the team. Officers are in charge of organizing their very 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 together with others ειδησεισ σημερα ελλαδα.

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

Greek life has so much more to supply compared to the social facet of the organization, and can truly prepare adults to join 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.