As many of you know, I am a senior, communications major with a concentration in journalism at East Carolina University. I work a part-time job on-campus and I am in 4 different organizations. I guess that you can say I am a pretty busy person. I have been heavily involved on-campus since my freshman year and it has graced me with many opportunities and chances to meet people.
Being heavily involved has led me to become president over one of the student organizations that I have been a part of since sophomore year. I want to give a little knowledge about how to be a successful organization president.
I've learned to be direct, presence, honesty, planning- and something that I've always mastered are thinking everything through.
1. Being Direct
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You must be direct. Running an organization with 40+ members is not easy and sometimes you have to be direct and straight-forward. Making sure that everyone knows you have created a set of rules to follow and that they follow them is a part of being direct.
When someone in the organization is not handling their duties and responsibilities like they are required to, then you must be direct and handle them accordingly. You may seem harsh or mean at first, but it's a part of running an organization.
2. Honesty
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Being direct and being honest correlate well with each other. I am a very honest person, and I've learned that my honesty has taken me further in life than opposed to lying about situations. Being honest is addressing everyone in the organization of a mishap, addressing any poor decision-making, or even just giving explanations about why or why not you've or the executive board have decided to not move forward with an event or activity.
3. Planning
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Planning is extremely significant for running an organization. There should be many things that the executive board or yourself have considered and planned before allowing more events or activities to occur. If the organization has something going on during Tuesday night, then there should not be conflicting event because you forgot about the previously established event.
Planning is time consuming and it takes more than one person to plan for a semester, school year or more.
4. Thinking everything out
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To be a successful president, you may want to brush up on your thinking skills. You cannot think about yourself when you're in a position that requires you to think about everyone else as well. I have always had a trait to think everything out before I decide to do something.
I think about the consequences and outcome of how the decision I am about to make will influence me and others. It is important to think about everyone else first in an organization if you're the president because any executive decision you make, it'll affect them.
It may seem cliché, but it is the truth and it has helped me to be a successful president of my organization.
Being president is not an easy thing. There's much sleep lost, stress is accumulated and you are misunderstood half of the time. BUT it's all worth it because you are a part of something bigger than yourself. Representing an organization is one thing, but making sure that the organization is operating smoothly is another. Be the president that you need to be, not the one that everyone wants you to be. Get it done.
