How to Train Your Officers

By Cathe Felz, National Consultant Team

Successful chapters have student leaders who are capable of accepting a variety of leadership roles. The big question is how do we prepare our students for the roles of leaders in our chapters? Honestly there is not just one answer to this question and the best teachers are time and action.

Officer training begins well before elections take place. Planning activities, working on projects, or participating on national program teams afford students the opportunity to develop skills in communication, collaboration, and commitment while providing a service to their community. Leadership development during chapter activities is important to allow students to practice new skills in a safe environment.  Establishing a committee for a project consisting of older more experienced members and younger less experienced members allows older members to take on a mentor role.

Many states offer a leadership retreat for state and district officers to assist with leadership training. If your state doesn’t, consider planning your own with other chapter advisers within your district, area or region. There are countless leadership activity resources available online or from libraries. Make the retreat interactive with games and activities which get them up and moving. If you haven’t seen the show Minute to Win It, watch it, they have great activities which could be done by teams in a relay format.

If you are looking for a great way for your local officers to bond as a team, have them prepare a meal. Student officers are given a budget, they have to plan the menu, shop for supplies and actually prepare the meal together in one kitchen.  If the conversation at the meal seems strained, have a couple of table games prepared ahead of time.  For instance, have each person jot down an interesting fact about themselves that they don’t think the others know about them. Fold the slips of paper and redistribute them.  One at a time each person reads the statement and everyone tries to decide who the statement is about.

Set up a time for officers to meet outside of class to work together to manage chapter meetings, develop agendas, and discuss goals for their officer team. Provide opportunities for officers to communicate outside of established meeting times as well by providing mail boxes, exchanging phone numbers, establishing a private Facebook group or using email.

Establish clear expectations for officers at the beginning of their term of office. Provide information in whatever format works best for your team and use a combination of methods. During the early months, check with officers daily or weekly to provide assistance with managing projects and activities then as the year progresses pull back and allow them to explore their potential as leaders.

I look forward to hearing other ideas on training chapter officers.