Excerpt from Collegiate Leadership Manual, Pp. 31-32

Chapter Advisor Training (excerpt from Collegiate Leadership Manual, pp. 31-32) Advising Skills The goal of an advisor should be to guide her officer to make good decisions and to help her develop as a leader. Advising will involve listening, suggesting and sometimes ruling on a question. The following are additional skills that can assist in successful advising for collegiate officers and members.

Empathy An advisor should be empathetic, even though she may not entirely agree with the officer’s point of view. The advisor should try to understand the problem from the member’s viewpoint. It has been said that until people know you care, they do not care to know what you know.

Positive Attitude An advisor should convey openness and receptiveness. She should be willing to change her mind in the face of reliable evidence. She should respect the officer’s point of view and consider all elements of a situation before drawing a conclusion. She should be willing to check all reliable sources for information before coming to a conclusion. She should be careful, curious and accurate in her observations. She should use critical thinking—questioning and checking details—and express her opinions.

Listening To get a clear picture of the member’s viewpoint, an advisor must listen carefully. Block out all distraction in order to give full attention to the speaker, observing body signals as well as vocal tone and emotional impact. Listening may take two forms, reflective and non-reflective. A non-reflective listener acts as a sounding board. Sometimes this is what an officer needs and wants. The listener responds with very few words while listening to the whole story. A reflective listener aids the speaker by asking questions to help connect disjointed thoughts and paraphrases what she understands as the underlying message. She does not interrupt or guide the conversation and accepts the speaker’s silence when there is a pause to collect thoughts.

Suggesting The advisor should find at least one point on which to agree. Discuss the positive first; then, deal with the negatives. Use the questions “What if?”; “Have you thought about?”; “Is this the best way?”; “What are our options?”; “How will this reflect on Presented at the Volunteer Leadership Conference 2007 1 Alpha Gamma Delta?”; “Is this compatible with our Purpose?”; “Is this within our budget?”; “How might we compromise?”

Anticipating An advisor needs to look ahead, drawing on her experiences, to anticipate the result of decisions in terms of future difficulties. When she sees problem areas, she must communicate these with her officer or Executive Council and seek a resolution. Critical thinking by the advisor can prevent later difficulties.

Ruling There are occasions when an advisor must take a stand—sometimes an unpopular stand—based on the Constitution and Standing Rules, Governing Documents of the Fraternity or chapter bylaws. When this occurs, she should point to the page for her authority, show the reason for the ruling and explain that there is no choice in this decision. When possible, alternative suggestions should be presented.

Organizing An advisor should keep her materials organized so that answers may be found promptly and details cared for thoroughly.

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