Fly on a Wall...

This week, #SLA371 was asked to blog on our experiences observing a student organization’s weekly meeting. Our goal was not to intervene and observe the dynamic of the leader(s), the followers and the context in which the meeting took place. We are currently reading The Emotional Intelligence for Students, and the book lays the groundwork for us to take a “balcony” approach to observing our student groups. Effective leadership incorporates an understanding of identifying what to say to a group of people based on the context of the environment. The better we are at identifying these elements, the greater effective we can have as leaders.

(I shadowed a Greek organizational on The Ohio State University’s campus. To protect the organization and the individuals involved, I have created alias names.)

The Leader:  The President of the fraternity, David, opened and led the meeting. He was seated in the front of the room at a table that included the other members of the executive committee. David did a remarkable job at maintaining order without having to utilize a gavel or the authority vested in him. Past presidents have struggled with this balance, and have usually had to maintain order throughout the meeting. David allows the executive members as well as the general body to take ownership of the discussions and topics, but guided the members back onto point if the discussion strayed too far from the original topic. All of the executive members took turns giving their reports, and allowed for members on their committees (seated amongst the general body of members) to report as well. This allowed for all positions to be heard, and demonstrated that the executive committee guided the direction of the fraternity, however, the members still had a voice and influence over the day-to-day functions of the fraternity.

The Followers: The followers consisted of about 40 men who all faced the front of the room towards the exec committee. The group consisted of sophomores to seniors, and mainly the group was of Caucasian decent.  The group dynamic was very interesting to see.  About a fifth of people there were only present to be counted present, and were disengaged throughout the whole meeting. About another fifth cracked jokes the whole time and laughed at comments just to be funny. The other 3/5 of the group were engaged and provided meaningful comments throughout the ceremony. This provided a difficult dynamic for the leadership of the fraternity. The leadership committee did a nice job by keeping the meeting to one hour, staying on point, and discussing relevant issues concerning the whole chapter.

The Context: The meeting was held in the basement of their shelter, and everyone was dressed in collared shirts and slacks. The organization appears to strive to become better men, and not be like the fraternity of the “Animal House” era.  The group valued brotherhood, hanging out with each other, and discussed ways to improve their chapter. They discussed things like going trap shooting together, whether to incorporate a new philanthropy, and decided on whether or not to fix the pool table or not. The discussions around that were productive, yet included enough humor that everyone enjoyed themselves.

This was a great opportunity to sit back and just observe a meeting that I would have spoken normally.  Taking a step back, I saw points where holding my tongue and collecting my thoughts would have been very valuable to my leadership in the organization. I look forward to the next meeting, and incorporating my understanding of the leaders, followers, and the context dynamic of the meeting.