The (Hopefully) Changing Influence of Fraternities

Before watching the movie "W." the other night, I had remembered hearing that George W. Bush had been a member of a fraternity. I was interested to see how his fraternity system would be portrayed. During the movie, the only mention of his fraternity experience was a minute or two of him being hazed in what looked like the fraternity's basement and being forced to drink with his pledge brothers when they failed to answer questions thrown at them by the brothers.

It was a shame to me to see the fraternity system portrayed in this way although I do not doubt that it was accurate. Movies like this were the sole source of information I had on the fraternity system for the first 18 years of my life. When traveling on a college campus as a high school senior, the tour guide spoke of the prevalence of the Greek System on that particular campus. At that time, my mother asked me if I thought I would ever join a fraternity and I quickly dismissed the thought with a "No Way." Famous last words.

In my first semester as a Cornellian, I got a new and much more diverse view of the fraternity system. Although I definitely came across some fraternities on campus that fit my preconceived notions, with over 40 fraternities on campus I found many chapters with personalities that I felt at home with.

Still, I was reluctant to associate myself with a fraternity. Partially because I knew my family and friends at home would have the same negative stereotypes as I once had and partially because I was afraid that I would see a different side of the fraternities if I started pledging. On top of that, I was reluctant to take on another time commitment even if hazing was not involved. Luckily, I found a fraternity with guys that I could trust to have a good pledging experience. They assured me that they would be flexible to the schedules of the pledges. Even so, I wrestled with the decision for a long time. One of the things that finally sold me was hearing about the leadership experiences available. Never before had it even crossed my mind that I could gain that type of experience as a member of a fraternity.

As with most things in my life, once I committed to joining, I gave it everything I had. I was elected pledge class president by my pledge brothers and learned a lot trying to keep everyone on top of their pledge work and school work. After serving as assistant social for my first semester as a brother, I made the leap to Vice President (which we call Grand Procurator). I held that position for two semester-long terms before taking on my (calendar) year long term as President (Grand Master) which I am currently serving.

I know that if a movie were to be made about my life (or in a far more likely scenario, when I tell people about my life) my time as a member of Kappa Sigma would highlight the rich leadership experiences I was able to have and the subsequent role it played on my growth as a person. The fraternity scene is changing. It is my highest aspiration to continue the momentum towards fraternities being positive life changing experiences for men in my chapter, my fraternity and in the fraternity system as a whole.

Who I Am

My father has been a successful entrepreneur since I was 7 years old, something that I admire immensely. He decided to quit his job as a successful executive in health care because he had lost his passion for work. Instead, he began a leadership development company that he dubbed The XLR8 Team. Ever since, he has been helping others reignite their passion for work. Needless to say, listening to him talk about leadership for the past 13 years has shaped much of my life. From striving to be the captain of numerous soccer and tennis teams to earning the rank of eagle scout and now being the president of my fraternity, leadership has become deeply ingrained in who I am.

I recently attended a week long leadership retreat that my father takes his clients through that includes traditional 360 feedback as well as a great amount of self-reflection to develop leaders that are self-aware and able to transform company cultures. His largest client is Wegmans Food Markets, a supermarket chain in the Northeast that has been ranked among the top 5 in Fortune Magazine's Best Places to Work including a #1 Ranking in 2005. While he certainly cannot claim credit for such a massive accomplishment, I would like to think that his role as a consultant to Wegmans' leaders has been a significant ingredient in their recipe for success.

When I return to school for my senior year in the fall, I will be taking my direct reports through the leadership process that he has all of his clients take their people through. After all, teaching others is the best way to retain what you have learned. In this blog, I plan to talk about the trials and tribulations of organizational transformation and student leadership in general. It is also intended to help me practice sharing what I know about leadership so that I can do the same with the leaders in my fraternity and others I may come across. While I certainly don't know it all, I hope to be able to share what I do know or comment on things I have read or experienced recently.

And so it begins...

I must admit that I have had an aversion to writing as long as I can remember. In school, I always did all of my homework before touching any essay, usually leading to late nights and feeding my distaste for writing. However, a series of events that have happened in my life recently convinced me to give blogging a try...

While reading Marshall Goldsmith's "What Got You Here Won't Get You There," Goldsmith outlines 20 flaws that he sees as the main deterrents that keep good leaders from becoming great. Two that struck a chord for me were #12 Making excuses and #20 An excessive need to be me. Both are similar in that they detail a leader who accepts their own flaws, justifying them by saying "That's just me. Deal with it." For example, one might say "I'm just no good at managing my time; that's just the way I am." This particular excuse is one I have used for years. I rationalized my poor time management by explaining how well I worked under pressure. While I always meet deadlines and turn in quality work, my sleep often suffers. In addition, I accepted that writing was just "not for me." In the leadership training I have been through, I have learned about the power of positive thoughts as well as how crippling negative thoughts can be. While it seems silly, my belief that I disliked writing became a self-fulfilling prophecy that kept me from writing. How long would I write a blog before I became tired of writing?

Finally, while at the gym a few days ago, I noticed a sign that said "Know that commitment is a muscle." I realized that when I began regularly attending the gym in my first year of college, I convinced myself that I loved to go. In the past 3 years since, I have been to the gym 5 or 6 days a week almost every week. I had convinced myself that the gym was the best part of my day--it was an hour that I could forget about my to-do list and the aching that I felt when I left gave me great satisfaction. It didn't take long to see the result, which only motivated me to go more often, learn more about fitness and work out harder. This gave me the drive to begin a blog and know that through practice I would be able to sustain it and learn to enjoy writing. Hopefully my skill at writing and the ease with which the words flow will only improve as I continue to write and it will continue to motivate me as I had been motivated by the results of working out. If I can overcome the one thing that makes me procrastinate more than anything else, maybe it can help with my time management as well.