Many may only see collegiate Greek life as a social group who hides their partying behind community service hours and charitable donations. However, I would like to challenge that stereotype by emphasizing the professional development and self-improvement opportunity that is presented to Greek life members - especially those 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 show the relation between Greek organizations and businesses.

Greek organizations:
• Divide officers into teams to work on specific regions 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 keep 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 points that report 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 running a Greek organization and must help every officer no real matter what team her position is just a part of. My days are filled up with constantly making decisions and weighing the consequences. I discovered to make 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. Like, we'd a tiny crisis with flyers which were made to market an event we were having. If they came in, we noticed the contact email on the flyers was spelled wrong. After some deliberation, we made a decision to utilize the flyers we'd and made a new current email address with the typo included.

A massive element of owning a successful organization works well 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 respond to emails in a specialist manner. My communication skills have improved substantially since being a leader of my chapter. I have discovered to communicate concisely and format information in the most effective way. I have discovered providing information in bullet lists is the better way to have members to read messages fully. All of our officers must hold team meetings and get reports of progress in the different areas on the team. Officers are in charge of organizing their own 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 is our job to possess conversations using them about why this 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 are also our friends and sisters. As a leader of a Greek organization, I am understanding how to have these hard conversations while remaining in control of myself and the conversation.

Greek life has much more to provide compared to the social part of the business, and can truly prepare teenagers to become listed on 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.