Day 3: Leadersh!t

After missing breakfast by one minute yesterday, I decided the obvious solution today was to skip breakfast all together and sleep in. It was a good decision. Our keynote speaker of the day was Kristen Hadeed who entitled her program "Leadersh!t". Kristen spoke of her past experiences as a leader of her self-made cleaning company, and how over the past seven years she has had to grow as a person and as a leader. She told stories of how she would clock out of work and go out with her employees and make irresponsible decisions. She told of one specific occasion when she had two of her high school aged employees bartend a party she hosted. Halfway through she decided it was not fair to those two employees that they were not having a good time. She proceeded to pour three shots and give them to her underage employees. She then spent the next twenty minutes helping them throw up in the bathroom. She told many other stories with similar outcomes. One day she realized that if she wanted to succeed she needed to make some changes in her life. She introduced me to a exercise she calls FBI. This is a way to better communicate with the people around you. FBI stands for Feeling, Behavior, and Impact. An example of an FBI could be: I feel disappointed because you committed to coming to the meeting last week and now you are telling me you cannot and the impact that has is I am unsure if i can rely on you in the future. This example effectively communicates to the person on the other side why Kristen was upset and what the impact of their action has on their relationship. This an effective tool I would love to bring back to my chapter. I think in any leadership role it is important to be an effective communicator if you want to get anything done.

My first session of the day was entitled "Putting the Act back in ACTion"presented by Stephanie Wright. Stephanie talked about why people "run" from our chapters. She gave four main reasons that members may decide to leave our chapters, even if the previous semester they may have been the overly excited members. These reasons were family issues, lack of understanding, joined for the wrong reasons, and the intake process. Stephanie gave ways that given each of these reasons you can try to regain the members attention.

For the first reason, family issues, you as a member can make sure that sisterhood (or brotherhood) prevails. You should try to have deeper conversations with your sisters and try to understand what they are going through. It may be hard to remember as someone who is not going through specific situations, but other people may have priorities that are more important to them than your organization is at this point in their life. If the issues is more serious than you can handle with a deeper conversation, you need to also be aware of what other resources you can direct your member towards that can positively help them. It may be hard but you do not have the tools to help everyone with serious

For the second reason, lack of understanding, you as a leader need to realize that sometimes people join your organization under false pretenses. They do not fully understand what your organization stands for and what you work towards everyday. As a leader you need to ask these members what they think their role in the chapter is and also remind them what their actual role is. Often if a member is trying to leave your organization they do not see themselves as vital part of your chapter, which in reality is the farthest thing from the truth. If you support your members and encourage them to take leadership positions they have a reason to want to stay and make a difference.

Another reason that people might want to leave is joining for the wrong reasons. Sometimes people join organizations for all the wrong reasons. They see the shirts, they see the people, and think that joining an organization means an improved social life. Sometimes you need to give these members a reality check and remind them what your organization stands for and the values that you hold your chapter to. If you can find a persons interest you may be able to retain them as a member, and give them a reason to want to stay.

Lastly, the intake process is important to the retention of members. If you recruit members on certain principles but the second that these new members join the chapter you change what you stand for, they will not feel as close to the chapter. They joined this chapter from what they saw during recruitment and the people that they thought they knew. As a leader you need to make sure that you keep in mind your organizations image and reputation, the leadership development you provide for your chapter, and the kind of campus involvement that you promote to your chapter. All of these things will make members want to stay in your organization and strive to make a change.