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's 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 keep a well-balanced, structured, and involved organization.

Fraternities and sororities must operate as a business first, and a socialite second to be able to be successful. I would really like to indicate some key concepts that report the relation between Greek organizations and businesses.

Greek organizations:
• Divide officers into teams to work with specific regions of the chapter
• Must operate on a strict budget, fueled solely from member's dues
• Must market themselves well in order to continue steadily to recruit new members
• Have mission statements and values to hold 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, in addition to 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 best business, combining friendship with professionalism and offering members a good opportunity for private 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 have learned to produce 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. For example, 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 made a decision to use the flyers we'd and made a fresh email address with the typo included.

A huge section of running a successful organization works well and professional communication. Our main forum of communication between officers and the advisory board is emailing. I discovered how exactly to properly send and react to emails in a professional manner. My communication skills have improved substantially since being a leader of my chapter. I have learned to communicate concisely and format information in the most truly effective way. I are finding providing information in bullet lists is the greatest way to obtain members to read messages fully. All of our officers must hold team meetings and get reports of progress in the different areas on their team. Officers are in charge of 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'm still learning through my presidency, is how to get comfortable with hard conversations. I work closely with this Director of Standards and Ethics to be sure our members are holding themselves to the high ideals and values. When someone is falling behind, it's our job to possess conversations together about why this really is happening and what we are able to do to be sure it 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 how to have these hard conversations while remaining in control of myself and the conversation.

Greek life has much more to supply than the social facet of the business, and can truly prepare teenagers to participate the professional world. Through developing members personally, and developing officers professionally, Greek organizations could offer life-changing collegiate experiences that can't be found elsewhere.