Greek Life Leaders: Operating the Final Organization

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

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

Greek organizations: 
• Divide officers into teams to work with specific aspects 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 put up 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, along with many policies and procedures in place for holding events

These are just a couple of points that show how Greek organizations are ran as the greatest business, combining friendship with professionalism and offering members a great opportunity for personal development.

As president, I see all sides of managing a Greek organization and must help every officer no 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 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. Like, we had a small crisis with flyers that were made to promote an event we were having. Once they came in, we noticed the contact email on the flyers was spelled wrong. After some deliberation, we chose to use the flyers we'd and made a brand new current email address with the typo included.

A huge part of owning a successful organization is beneficial and professional communication. Our main forum of communication between officers and the advisory board is emailing. I have discovered how exactly to properly send and answer emails in an expert 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 utmost effective way. I have discovered providing information in bullet lists is the best way to have members to learn messages fully. All of our officers must hold team meetings and get reports of progress in the various areas on the team. Officers are accountable for organizing their particular meetings and taking minutes to record what was discussed. Greek organizations teach members to effectively and professionally communicate through emailing, holding meetings, and dealing with others.

One of the very most valuable traits that I am still learning through my presidency, is how to get confident with hard conversations. I work closely with this Director of Standards and Ethics to ensure our members are holding themselves to our high ideals and values. If someone is falling behind, it's our job to own conversations using them about why this really is happening and what we could do to make sure 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 understanding how to have these hard conversations while residing in control of myself and the conversation.

Greek life has a lot more to offer compared to the social facet of the organization, and can truly prepare teenagers to join the professional world. Through developing members personally, and developing officers professionally, Greek organizations can offer life-changing collegiate experiences that can't be found elsewhere.