In this episode, Adam and Christopher interview Scott Smith, the General Fraternity’s Director of Leadership Development. Scott oversees the development of the LEAD Program, the Fraternity’s award-winning ethical leadership development program. During the episode, Adam, Christopher, and Scott discuss the history of the LEAD program and share best practices for collegiate members, officers, and volunteers to better understand how to improve the program's implementation.
The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. and is dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to stories from our brotherhood.
To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at www.sigmanu.org. Also consider following us on: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube | Flickr
Have feedback or a question about this episode? Want to submit an idea for a future topic you'd like to see covered? Contact the Gavel Podcast team at news@sigmanu.org.
Hosts for this Episode
Guests for this Episode
Episode Mentions and References
The Gavel Podcast - Ep 22 - The LEAD Program with Scott Smith (Central Arkansas)
[Intro Music]
0:00:42.2 Adam Girtz: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.
0:00:45.2 Christopher Brenton: I'm Christopher.
0:00:45.3 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity and is a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to the stories from our brotherhood.
0:00:56.0 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the fraternity, you can always check out our website at sigmanu.org, you can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at Sigma Nu HQ or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
0:01:06.3 Adam Girtz: Hello, Christopher and hello listeners, welcome to the show. A very special show today, as it always is when we have my very favorite guest on. I think I'm not supposed to say favorites or whatever, but I think I'm okay saying favorite guest because this is... Is this our first repeat guest? Have we had repeat guests? Anyway...
0:01:30.3 Christopher Brenton: Drew, technically.
0:01:30.5 Adam Girtz: Technically Drew. Yeah, but Scott Smith is here. Hello, Scott.
0:01:36.2 Scott Smith: Hey, how are you guys doing?
0:01:37.6 Adam Girtz: Wonderful, I'm glad to have you here.
0:01:39.8 Scott Smith: Happy to be here.
0:01:41.9 Adam Girtz: Well, Scott is here. Scott, would you care to introduce yourself before we dive in?
0:01:48.7 Scott Smith: Absolutely. Scott Smith, Director of Leadership Development for the fraternity, a role that I've been in since 2008. Joined the staff in 2005 as a young alumnus of the Lambda Phi Chapter University of Central Arkansas, and traveled the country for about a year and a half, and then started doing education work, which I continue to do today.
0:02:13.0 Christopher Brenton: Well, Adam, I think really quickly, we should explain why Scott is on the episode.
0:02:18.0 Adam Girtz: I agree.
0:02:19.6 Christopher Brenton: So for the listeners, every semester, we kind of... Not semester, I guess season of the podcast, we like to do a deeper dive into one of the Fraternity's signature programs, and so we've had actually Scott on in the past to talk about the College of Chapters, we've done deeper dives into the Behind Happy Faces curriculum, and this time we're going to be talking about the LEAD Program which kind of ties into, later this month, we are going to have our day of giving, and LEAD is in the signature focus for this year's day of giving, but we also want this episode to be evergreen, and if listeners are unfamiliar with the LEAD Program, perhaps the LEAD Program wasn't created until after they had already graduated from college which is a shrinking population of members as it has been around since, I believe, the late 1980s.
0:03:19.0 Christopher Brenton: And Scott will correct me if I'm wrong on that here shortly, but then also for collegiate members or young alumni, maybe your chapter hasn't fully implemented the LEAD Program, maybe you're looking to improve your current implementation of the program, and certainly this program will give you, or this conversation will give you some context for what the LEAD Program is intended to be, what it can be for your chapter and we'll also have some advice and resources at the end for you to improve your implementation of the LEAD Program.
0:03:50.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah, well, before we dive in, Scott, since you've already done your Sigma Nu story, and I encourage our listeners to go back and listen to the College of Chapters episode that we did. Scott, what have you been up to lately? What's your team up to?
0:04:05.6 Scott Smith: Yeah, great question. So it's a busy season in Sigma Nu, we're in the thick of the fall term. Almost all of our chapters are back on campus with a couple of our quarter schools that'll be coming back here, either in the next couple of days or over the next two weeks or so. And so a lot of things happen for me and my team as we close out the summer and we prepare and we start the fall year. An exciting end of summer this year, the High Council just went through a process to make a pretty significant update to the Pursuit of Excellence program. And so I spent a good bit of August implementing those updates. So as the council did, and not to turn this into a Pursuit of Excellence episode, maybe that can be for next year, but as the Council did in 2014, with the Pursuit of Excellence Program, is we were seeing chapters continually improve performance over time, and to the degree that things that had been bars to reach for or ideal performance to be honored and recognized had become a little bit easier and a little more common place.
0:05:24.0 Scott Smith: Which is a great problem to have when you've got your students in your Chapters performing at higher and higher levels. And so what they did in 2014 was they raised the bar, they said what was excellent in 2008 was no longer excellent, it was good, but it wasn't great. And so as we were coming into the pandemic, we very much were seeing the same type of response by Chapters as they went about their day-to-day and their annual operations, and the council was on pace to have another conversation about raising the bar as we were coming into the spring of 2020. The world had different plans for us, and so we made some commonsense changes to help Chapters weather and really thrive in many cases through the pandemic, and now as we seem to be starting to emerge from that.
0:06:16.0 Scott Smith: The council has taken a look at pre-pandemic and pandemic-era operations and expectations, and they've raised the bar, really, for the Pursuit of Excellence. So a lot of my time in August was sending results and next steps instructions, and really updating all the resources, particularly the updated evaluation guidelines. We're in the midst, and this is a bit of a piecemeal process, but updating all of our one-off officer resources into our new style and branding, as well as making content updates to those. Coming after that, I would be rewriting all of our officer manuals, fingers crossed, before elections happen this fall, for about 80% of our chapters.
0:07:00.3 Scott Smith: I just started yesterday, in fact, College of Chapters Prep'. And figuring out what breakout sessions we're going to offer and what sessions we're going to track different chapters into our consultant team. So our men in the field, some of our most important employees for the fraternity, that they get to be with our constituents, face-to-face. Which is such a great thing to say, after having that period in March and April of 2020, and really all of 2020-2021 school year where we were not in the living rooms of our chapters.
0:07:39.3 Scott Smith: Our consultants hit the road right around Labor Day. And so they're already through about a third of our chapters, having spent 48 hours there, meeting with officers. You mentioned Behind Happy Faces, we're actually delivering the Behind Happy Faces program, the first two lessons to chapters. I'm even getting some great feedback on that. And so, getting to be back out for what appears to be the closest to familiar or normal semester since fall 2019, back on campus, is exciting. So yeah, I will say for me, there are a few slow seasons, but this is one of the busier of the busy seasons.
0:08:21.4 Christopher Brenton: That's awesome. And two, I guess for the listeners, a little bit of behind the scenes. So both Adam and I have worked directly with Scott. And so neither of us now do, but it is exciting for us to hear about this progress. But also a little bit of a relief that we don't have to do all of those things that he is currently doing [chuckle] But it is really exciting to hear about all the change.
0:08:49.3 Adam Girtz: I kind of miss being on the consultant conference calls. I still have it in my calendar and maybe I'll pop-in for the beginning part of it, sometime.
0:08:55.0 Scott Smith: It's a great team, and it's something I love about our operation at the headquarters, is that everybody has this shared experience... With the exception of our CFO, all the members of our fraternal staff has served as a consultant. They've all done a tour of duty out in the field with the Chapters, they've all sat in the living rooms, and helped and learned and taught our students. And so I think it's something that's really cool, and I think it also speaks to how impactful and a strong professional development experience it is, because we're not just a team of consultants.
0:09:43.0 Scott Smith: I just said, all but our CFO, have been a consultant, from Brad Beacham on down, the Executive Director. And so we do promote from within. And it's bitter sweet to me, as the person that has led that program for the last almost decade-and-a-half now, in all these consultants that have gone on and done graduate school, are now working in big business, and doctors and lawyers and all of those things. But it's really cool to see all the other guys on the team, at least the ones that... There are people older than me on the team [chuckle], but the ones that I hired and got the pleasure of working with, to go off and do bigger and better things here at the fraternity, is really cool. And Adam and Christopher, you're just two examples of that.
0:10:30.9 Adam Girtz: Well, speaking of shared experiences...
0:10:35.1 Christopher Brenton: I know, we had to take advantage of the segue.
0:10:37.3 Adam Girtz: One of our collegiate chapter's shared experiences with each other, the LEAD Program. Christopher, you want to kick us off and set us down this road?
0:10:46.2 Christopher Brenton: Well funny enough, I thought you're going to take a different segue.
0:10:49.5 Adam Girtz: Oh.
0:10:49.6 Christopher Brenton: I was actually going to say, since we have Scott here... We don't normally have the opportunity to do this. Scott, I know there is the deadline coming up for leadership consultant applications. Did you want to... Or would you want to plug that really quickly, before we get into our main, meatier conversation?
0:11:05.8 Scott Smith: Yeah, I'll do the quick plug version. If you want the longer plug, you can check out the Call to Chapters episode, from I think season two. But yes, we are right now hiring, we are right now accepting applications, whether you are listening to this as the episode drops or you're listening to this from the future. I'm here from the past, telling you, "We're hiring", because we're always hiring." We're always looking for the best and brightest chapter and campus leaders to come and join our team, and to help pay it back to the next generation of Sigma Nu members and chapter leaders. And so we have two main periods around which we see our applications cluster and we do most of our interviews. The fall period, which we use basically, like where in you're going to college and early decision model. You're coming into your senior year, you apply in the fall, you go through the process and you get a decision before you start the spring of your final term in school. So we've got folks that are graduating in the upcoming spring, or even guys that may be on a December graduation track, that are going to be applying here over the next couple of weeks. And then we'll be doing interviews, leading up through the Thanksgiving time, and then starting to build out our team for next summer.
0:12:33.1 Scott Smith: So October 15, is our fall kind of early decision. And then March 1st, is our spring application period, is when those cluster round, but again, we accept applications 365, 24/7, 52 weeks a year, whenever is right for you to apply, but generally our consultants start either in early January, but what is much more common is consultants starting on the team on June 1st.
0:13:06.1 Christopher Brenton: Nice. Well, now, Adam, I will take full advantage of the segue that you set up to kind of dive into our main topic of conversation, which is the LEAD Program. So to start off, Scott, if you would, help us establish a base for this conversation. For those who may be unfamiliar with the LEAD Program, like I said at the top, they may not have been in the chapter when the LEAD Program... Or they already graduated from the chapter before the LEAD Program or graduated from college rather is a better way to phrase that before the LEAD Program was invented or created or maybe their chapter unfortunately just had not fully implemented it, and they had not had the opportunity to see what the LEAD Program could be for their experience, and so their familiarity is lacking. Could you provide a baseline of when did the program begin, roughly what was its founding purpose, and then maybe also too, if you could share maybe how the program has kind of evolved or how you've seen changes in the program over the last couple of decades that it's been around.
0:14:17.5 Scott Smith: Yeah, and to add a couple of other audiences in there too, Christopher, maybe you are shopping for fraternities right now, you're a prospective new member and you just stumbled upon this podcast, this is what you can help for and expect from your Sigma Nu experience or you're a volunteer or you're a parent. I think LEAD is something wonderful that Sigma Nu has, and it's something that is not rare anymore, but is not as common as you might think in the fraternity in sorority world, and so let me help build that basis you said. The LEAD Program was first launched in 1988, so the 20th century, which is kind of weird to say, but 1988, the Program was created, and the purpose of LEAD... LEAD is an acronym, as you guys know, but for the general listener, LEAD is an acronym that stands for Leadership, Ethics, Achievement and Development. And Sigma Nu has specific definitions for each of those words, and so in a direct sense, the philosophy or the purpose of LEAD is to fulfill those four definitions, but from a broader standpoint, what is LEAD there to do, and this is true from 1988 as much as it's true today, is LEAD is there to fulfill the fraternity's mission.
0:15:53.9 Scott Smith: And when I think about the LEAD Program, I think very much about the first two lines of the mission statement, "to develop ethical leaders inspired by the principles of love, honor and truth, and to foster the personal growth of each man's mind, heart and character." So if somebody asked the basic question or are looking for maybe the soundbite answer why you have a LEAD Program, well, because it speaks directly to fulfilling the mission of Sigma Nu Fraternity: Developing ethical leaders and fostering the personal growth of each man.
0:16:29.3 Scott Smith: And I think when you get to widespread chapter participation, the LEAD Program is a strong impact as well in that third part of our mission, which is to perpetuate life-long friendships and commitment to the fraternity. So the benefit or the by-product of going through this at a cohort year in school level with your candidate class or fellow brothers of the same age, and then the elements that you go through as a chapter-wide, they do help to strengthen those friendships and they do help to show and provide value to each individual to keep them tied to their fraternity.
0:17:16.4 Scott Smith: It creates and allows them to practice very specific skills, and it can help to make the chapter experience what I think we all hope and romanticize that it will be, all of those more ephemeral parts of the experience beyond some of the nuts and bolts. And I think to understand LEAD at its base, you also have to understand and appreciate the fraternity's philosophy on leadership. So the LEAD program is based on the emphasis or on emphasizing the development of all members, so regardless of their tenure or their position in the chapter, and it's also rooted in ethical leadership development, something that's so critically needed in our country, and I believe that that was true in 1988, and I believe that that was true when the program was first updated in 1998 on its 10th birthday, and we updated it again for its 20th birthday in 2008. We need ethical leaders, not just on campus, not just in our Chapter houses, but in our court houses, in our churches and our businesses, even our country.
0:18:33.5 Scott Smith: And so it's leadership for everybody, personal development for everybody, ethics for everybody. And so the way that LEAD began in 1988, was a focus on bringing in what was the candidate process. They called it the Pledge Program I believe at the time. Which was built on the back of the amazing Sigma Nu essay, The Way of Honor, right? And included all of the nuts and bolts and how to pieces. Not only how to Sigma Nu, but kind of how to be a man, right? There was resources on how to tie a tie and how to write a letter and how to do a thank you note and those kinds of things. And as we come into the 90s, what we see moving from version 1.0 to version 2.0 of the program is that the program that was launched in the 80s around this philosophy that leadership is for everybody and the fraternity has a role in helping chapters have a consistent experience, chapter to chapter and consistent year over year in understanding the opportunity that they have and the development that they can get from Sigma Nu.
0:20:00.9 Scott Smith: And so the model that they took up was the fraternity that the headquarters element will take care of creating the curriculum and preparing the materials and training the Chapters, and then the Chapter will handle the delivery of the program. And so that has stayed true throughout LEAD's 30 plus year history coming up on 35 years here as we tick over the calendar here in a couple months. In the 1990s, what the fraternity, and then paired with the foundation, were realizing was we have an ability to make a huge impact with a program like this, ethical leadership development for all of of these student members. So they brought together a group of trusted volunteers, staff, of current students, and really some top flight experts on leadership and ethics and student college student affairs. And they brought this kind of task force or working group together and they reimagined what a 21st century LEAD Program would be, right? What would the LEAD of the 2000s need to look like?
0:21:18.9 Scott Smith: And so they took the basics from version 1.0 and they expanded on that into a program that was based on college student development theory. So where are folks socially, emotionally, developmentally, in a traditional college age continuum, right? In America, traditional college age, about 18 years old up through about 22 years old, right? We're dealing with a male audience although the LEAD Program is absolutely applicable and appropriate for a female audience as well. But what they did was they expanded the program beyond, it's a new member program and maybe it has some elements that are for everybody all together. And what they created was a phase based program. Phase 1 is your first year, your candidate program in the Chapter. Phase 2 is for sophomores, phase 3 is for juniors, phase 4 is for seniors. So a specific and separate curriculum that you would go through in your cohort, your candidate or pledge class. You'd have this consistent group going through these increasing levels of intensity based on higher levels of thought and higher levels of learning based on where you were socially and developmentally, right?
0:22:47.7 Scott Smith: You can have a very different conversation and appreciation and articulation of values or morals or ethics as an 18-year old freshman than you can have as 21-year old senior starting to look for jobs, right? And so LEAD does that, it builds in that way, but it also presents different, be they soft or hard skill or whatever kind of a terminology you want to use around that. But be it nuts and bolts, Sigma Nu stuff, be it predominantly across the LEAD Program topics that are just appropriate for college students and particularly college students that have come into an association, right? Be it a fraternity or a team or a performance group or academic club or whatever. As you're learning about yourself, as you're learning about working with other people, as you're learning about being apart of a larger community and what your responsibilities are there, and then as you're preparing to go off into the world of work. Okay? And so this task force created and started to roll out across the early 2000s this phase based program for each year in school.
0:24:09.3 Scott Smith: And then ultimately a kind of catchall that surrounded that, in what they called all chapter, so for everyone. Which was basically and is basically a monthly gathering of the entire collegiate membership from candidate to about to graduate senior. On today, one of four themes, a session on personal development, a session on organizational development, a risk reduction topic, and now since about 2018, a mental health topic. And so we come all together. So that is the program that came out in... Was announced in 1998, and then rolled out over the next couple of years. And so this is important to our philosophy on leadership. Leadership is for everyone. Now, Sigma Nu was the first of its kind in the fraternal world to roll out a program like this, like the LEAD Program. And Sigma Nu has been at the beginning of so many things whether it be something like FEA or FRMT or in creating some of the original risk reduction policy as a part of FIPG and hazingprevention.org, we've just finished National Hazing Prevention Week. All of these things.
0:25:47.5 Scott Smith: So LEAD is just another example in that. Now, today, like I said, LEAD is not as rare as it used to be, but it's not necessarily common, and I don't say that as good or bad. But when you think about, well, hey, my son or my cousin or my wife was in a different organization and they have whatever their program is called. LEAD is the same thing. Well, maybe, and maybe not. When you look at LEAD versus what some other fraternal organizations might have, LEAD again, obviously focused on those four elements, Leadership, Ethics, Achievement and Development. But it is this four-year multi-phase ethical leadership development and a membership education program. So it's a lot of things and it has grown into an umbrella that covers some other programs that I'm sure we'll talk about in a little while.
0:26:44.3 Scott Smith: But because of that philosophy and that commitment, leadership is for everybody, we have taken this approach with LEAD, compared to some of, again, some of our peer organizations that might focus their member experience around just the new member program or just training and education for officers, or they do... You might have some groups that do one that is very specific to just a ritual study or others that is, it's just about our emerging leader, so our rising sophomores and juniors. Some organizations use a pay-to-play model, if you can come to the event, then you get the development. Whereas again, Sigma Nu, as I mentioned from the beginning, has taken this model of, "The fraternity will manage the curriculum and the materials, and we will do the training and then the chapters will deliver." So that's a little bit of the differences between what you might see in other organizations on campus or in fraternity and sorority versus LEAD.
0:27:51.0 Scott Smith: So to finish answering your question about the different iterations, LEAD has been on a pretty good 10-year cycle of going through a major update. So the original program comes out in 1988, in 1998 version 2.0 is announced and that was really an overhaul of the program, so that's where you see the implementation of the college student development theory and the creation of the four phases in that kind of cohort model. In 2008, based on the back of some national third-party independent scientific analysis, we were doing some qualitative study and quantitative study on the LEAD Program in a partnership with George Mason University, and a realization that this thing called the internet was for real, and it was here to stay and the students spent a lot of time there. We did effectively what I would like to call a redesign of the LEAD program. We kept the basics from 1998, we're still a four-phase program, it's still based on your in-school, but we redesigned the format of the session so that they were two-part.
0:29:06.7 Scott Smith: There was an at your own pace, e-learning, kind of a flip through magazine with activities and voice-overs and quizzes and journaling, handouts and things you could do on your computer that you would do really at any point during the week or the month in a lead up to coming together for an in-person workshop on the same topic. And what that really did was expand access to the LEAD program. Again, leadership is for everybody. As awesome as they were, version 1.0 and 2.0, if your chapter didn't offer it, or let's say you had to work on the nights that it was held, you didn't really have the same experience, you didn't really have the access to it. Or maybe you're a young alum and you're like, "Man, I wish my Chapter had taught me how to negotiate a salary or be a rock star in the first year of work, I didn't... We didn't offer that, or I missed that session, what do I do?" So what we did a lot of in 2008, beyond just going and let's put some stuff online, was we created a participant experience where one had not existed for the sophomore and the junior and the senior year.
0:30:21.5 Scott Smith: So all of those sessions then became coupled with, not a perforated workbook, but something I could access from my computer and then my phone and anywhere in the world at any time. And so that was a big piece of what we did in 2008. So whereas '98 was an overhaul, 2008 was a redesign. In 2018, so this is a few years before the pandemic, we discontinued use of the e-learning model. It had come and gone. And the students, while they were spending increasing amounts of time online, that was not what they wanted to do when they were online. [chuckle] And so because they were spending a large part of their lives online, there was some novelty and I think some real benefit in helping them improve their interpersonal skills through in-person activity.
0:31:19.3 Scott Smith: And so we pivoted in 2018, it wasn't a full update or redesign, but it was kind of a version 3.5, if you will, where we went through and we update all the curriculum and added new resources and added in, what I love, we added in a series of ethical dilemmas at the end of each session in most of the phases, we improved readability for the facilitators, other bells and whistles and things like that. And that was all in the build up to a similar process that the fraternity had gone through in the 1990s, which was to put together a task force of movers and shakers, fraternity experts and facilitation and curriculum experts and volunteers. And the folks that were involved, the... I don't want to age them. The mother and father, I guess, of the modern LEAD Program, Dave and Dr. Felicia Manilla, who were there and wrote a lot of the stuff that came out as a part of version 2, were on the task force that we held in the 2017-2018 year, to envision, what does the LEAD Program of the 2020s need to look like? And then we had a pandemic, and so I think that's a good point for me to pause and I will tease a little bit, in-episode tease I guess, because I know you want to ask about what's next in a little bit.
0:32:55.4 Adam Girtz: Yes, yes, we will get to that here shortly.
0:33:00.7 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, so, thanks for the history there, Scott, so that kind of brings us up to the current state of LEAD. So in your eyes, having been intimately involved with the LEAD Program, what are some of the strengths of the Program in its current form?
0:33:18.9 Scott Smith: So some of the things that I think are amazing about what we have with the LEAD Program, and again, I am lucky to be somebody that gets to help shepherd this program. Like I said, if I worked for another fraternity, I might not have this. This was gifted to me because of the decisions and the commitment that the fraternity and the foundation made going back to the '80s. And so what I love about the current program that we have is that there's something for everybody. You've got your new member education in there, the basis of your candidate program, week by week, boom, everything you need to know, and then the chapter handles more of the practical elements of it, of the, all right, we're going to elect officers and do the class meetings and things like that, but hey, you need to learn about the bylaws or how the organization works, or why rituals are important and how to just prepare yourself for going through a ritual experience, or what are your values, and what is it like?
0:34:27.6 Scott Smith: You might be on a team or in a club for the first time ever. How do you work with other people? What is going to be your leadership expectation? What is the history of fraternities? What is the history of our local chapter? All that stuff is in your phase one experience, all the way up to... Our juniors are the most engaged that they're going to be at that point in their career. They're the busiest people on campus, the juniors. They're heavy into their major, they've got the deepest relationships that they're probably going to have, if they're getting a job while they're in college, they're working it, if they're having officer positions, they're in all the clubs they're going to be in. They're super busy.
0:35:09.4 Scott Smith: Well, phase three of the program builds on that and says, "Let's have you learn a little more, but let's have you practice the skills that you have learned in the chapter and in LEAD in these other organizations and relationships that you have." And so it's more of like a leadership lab approach, where they're working at their own pace and they're getting together once a month for coffee or dinner at somebody's house and just talking about how that has been going for them. And what I really liked there is if the three of us were in a cohort for phase three, I don't have to do all the projects because you're probably going to pick different ones than I'm going to pick, and I'm going to learn through your experience just in us processing what that is. So no matter what year you're in, no matter where your Chapter is in the country, I think it's got pieces for everyone.
0:36:01.3 Scott Smith: Something else I like is that LEAD as it's grown up over the years, it's literally grown up and become this umbrella for some larger pieces. One of those we've already mentioned and it has already been featured on a podcast, is the Behind Happy Faces, the mental health program. That collegiate series is now embedded into all chapters and is a standard component there where, "Hey, one month in either our fall or our winter/spring term, we need to be having a mental health conversation as a chapter." I love that that's in there. A couple of years ago, we wrote a guide to team building that includes 70 different team building activities that is embedded here in the LEAD Program.
0:36:49.7 Scott Smith: And then the other piece that is still relatively new, probably in the last half decade or so, is something that we call the Sigma Nu Talks. So, it's a curated set of TED Talks and YouTube videos and keynotes from past Sigma Nu conclaves on leadership, on values, on social issues. And so just like a TED Talk, you're looking at 4-17 minutes professionally shot video, professional speaker, like a keynote in your living room, right? So this I love because it's super easy from a student perspective, like, "Let me jack my computer or phone into the flat screen TV, let me cue up this video, and then at the end of the video, I've got three to five discussion questions just to process that mini keynote and, boom, LEAD session."
0:37:45.0 Scott Smith: And so we've got, I don't know, there are some 30 talks that are curated across that three-part series of the Sigma Nu Talks. So that those are all in there are I think strengths as well. One other that I want to talk about too though is the fraternity has invested a lot of time and a lot of money into a program like LEAD, and the chapters have invested a lot of their time and resources into using the LEAD Program, and whenever you do that, you do it because you think that you got something good. You got something that works.
0:38:25.1 Scott Smith: And so what I would say one of the greatest strengths of the LEAD Program is that we know it works. We don't just say it works, we don't just hope it works. Like, we know it works. How do we know that it works? Well, back in 2005, we got into a partnership with George Mason University's Center for the Advancement of public health. Great researcher by the name of Dr. David Anderson, he's done a lot of stuff with college alcohol surveys, he's done a lot of stuff with NCAA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He's a fraternity man, he's not a Sigma Nu, but we don't fault him for that. But Dr. Anderson helped us design a survey, and then he and his team deployed the survey to the chapters and the members, and they did all of the analysis, so totally third party, totally independent, scientific, right? So from 2006 to 2014, we've done multiple national student assessments of the LEAD program, quantitative and qualitative.
0:39:37.9 Scott Smith: And so, why do you do that? You got a program. You think it's good, you think it works, good enough. Well, part of the aim in... I think probably even back to the 80's in developing something like LEAD was to be able to prove and show value. Like, "We believe this is good, but we want you to know that it is and you can trust it." And so what does doing some kind of independent scientific evaluation and do for you? Like, "Hey, you get that measure, you get that score card, right?" Like, "Here's a target, did you hit it? Is this program accomplishing that purpose that we talked about earlier?" How do you know how to tweak the program? Like, doing analysis like this helps you see, "Oh, well, we're not improving across this domain or this objective of the program, so what do we need to do?" We need a new session or we need to... Whatever. To gauge some enthusiasm and support for the program, like hearing directly from the end user, the student, like, what do you like, what do you not like, where are you struggling?
0:40:37.0 Scott Smith: And to generate some academic respect and support for the program. But going back to 2006, we've done six independent assessments with George Mason, and the resounding result is that LEAD is a strong program that shows significant benefits to both individual Chapters... Or individual participants and to Chapters. The takeaway is, and this is horrible grammar, and for somebody that fancies themself a copy editor, I... I cringe when I say it, but I think it helps people remember it. The big lessons learned in the analysis was that LEAD is good. [chuckle] Like, there are statistically significant differences when you compare Chapters and members with any participation in LEAD to those without a LEAD experience. Right? Now, it's getting harder and harder over the years to find a Chapter that doesn't use LEAD at one level or another, so 98% of our chapters, each year, are using some element of LEAD, maybe not a whole phase, maybe just a couple of sessions here and there.
0:41:46.8 Scott Smith: The other result that... Like silently, you're fist pumping, but at the same time, you have kind of like, mouth open like, "Wow, I hadn't thought about that." And this is where the grammar gets really bad. "More LEAD is more better." Like, there's this compounding effect, as you use additional phases of the program, as you actually go through that journey as a candidate all the way through to a senior. If you look at chapters and individuals that are using phases one through four, or even one through and/or Chapter, and you compare them to chapters that are only using two phases, individuals that have only done phase, again statistically significant differences. Like the students that use LEAD, see positive results or opportunities that are clearly linked to their actions.
0:42:38.3 Scott Smith: They're more aware of their personal values, they're better equipped to work through ethical dilemmas, they believe in the importance of buy-in, they know how and when to confront their brothers. They deliberately think about what their actions say about their values. They have plans in place to reach their goals, on and on and on, right? These are the direct measures, statistical analysis by a scientist that doesn't care whether LEAD is good or not, right? From a student taking a survey that headquarters in Lexington is never going to see. There's no reason to make this stuff up. So I think that that is another real big strength, the LEAD program is not just, "Hey, we got something cool and a lot of people use it, and some people like it." Like it works. Now...
0:43:28.3 Adam Girtz: More LEAD is more better is going to be...
0:43:30.0 Scott Smith: More LEAD is more better.
0:43:31.5 Adam Girtz: That's the quote of the episode. I love that.
0:43:33.9 Scott Smith: Yes, if you guys did fun little show titles, you could do that.
0:43:37.1 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:43:38.3 Christopher Brenton: Well, Scott too, I also think, obviously, there's a correlation there with sustained chapter excellence, I think about our Mu Cappa chapter at Southeast Missouri State, who is a perennial award winner in the LEAD categories. And then we have seen sustained excellence from them at the Rock chapter level, and then most recently, that they were recognized as a NIC chapter of distinction, which recognizes them as a top chapter among all chapters, among all fraternities. So really a stand-out group. And I really think that I would assume, but I also know some of their top leaders, we have had the chance to interact with or have served on the high council of collegiate grand councilman that we're seeing the fruit of their investment in the LEAD program.
0:44:29.4 Scott Smith: Oh, absolutely and I think that's an outstanding connection you make, and I don't want you or others to think that that's a coincidence, because the same story a couple of years earlier is Gamma Tau Minnesota.
0:44:41.2 Christopher Brenton: Yeah.
0:44:41.6 Scott Smith: Right? And concurrently, while Gamma Tau is on that same track, you've got Epsilon Nu Butler on that same track. Right? Increasing commitment to the LEAD program, Rock chapter, NIC Award. Similar story down to Georgia at Mu. These are all chapters that have not only hit the pinnacle of, "Hey, we're a Rock chapter! Now we're a Rock among rocks at the NIC level." They have roots in the LEAD program. Now, let me be clear here, before anyone turn this off and think that I'm selling something here, but like LEAD is a tool, it's not a magic elixir. [laughter] It will make you better, right? But it is just part of that. It is one exercise that you can do, it is one tool that you can use.
0:45:37.3 Adam Girtz: Well, Scott, I've wanted to ask this question, I actually put this one in here by myself, this was one that I was excited to ask you about. And Christopher, if you have a response as well, feel free to share it. I might share mine. Scott, do you have a favorite phase of LEAD or a favorite session that you really like?
0:45:58.3 Scott Smith: Yeah, I think that phase two is probably my favorite phase. Phase two is really all about self-discovery and starting to work in a group. So you're looking at sophomores, 19-year-olds, been in a chapter probably about a year, they're meeting on a monthly schedule and they are learning about leadership, and they're learning about personality type, they are learning some classic literature, right? Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and The Leadership Challenge. So personal effectiveness. One of my favorite sessions, and I've picked out a couple of them, because I can't just have one favorite. [chuckle] But actually two of my favorite sessions are in phase two.
0:46:51.5 Scott Smith: Session three on visionary leadership, I really like. I think it's important having a vision for yourself, and then even at that level where, depending on your chapter, you may not be an officer or if you are, hopefully it's not... You're not the executive office running the chapter already, but having that careful consideration of where do I think we should be going, and how do I take my vision and make it our vision? My other favorite, and this one we have snuck into the Collegiate Chapters and it's my favorite Collegiate Chapters. Small Group session. Is session eight from phase two on living our values. So you really... Because there is some confusion about like, "What are values?" They're not morals, they're not ethics, they're kind of this in between, right? And so you get to kind of dive into that in this session, and you get to talk about chapter values and you get to talk about stated values versus actual values like, what do we say we are? Versus how do we spend our resources and our time and our action say that we are.
0:47:57.2 Scott Smith: And then there's this gut check moment where you have to do this audit of yourself and figure out like, "What is my batting average been of how I act versus what my values are." And that comes after they have to rank personal... So either way, it's a very powerful self-exploration. To go back to phase one, we have an awesome session that helps new candidates learn how the fraternity works, from the single member all the way up to the Grand Chapter, that is a fun little presentation and game that Chapters can do.
0:48:29.0 Adam Girtz: Phase one session four, that was going to be my favorite one.
0:48:32.5 Scott Smith: Absolutely.
0:48:32.9 Adam Girtz: I love doing that one on the road. The Prezi PowerPoint thing with that was always fun, and yeah, I feel like it sparks a lot of great questions, especially when you do it with a candidate class because they're just getting introduced to this whole thing. They're like, "Oh, this is a lot bigger than I thought it was." And I think it gives a lot of really excellent context to like, "Oh, we're part of a larger mission and we matter." Right? I always thought that was really neat.
0:48:58.7 Scott Smith: Yeah. From Phase four, I think session two has a cool networking simulation that's built into it that you could do as an event by inviting a sorority or some other campus organization to participate and actually do a networking with people that... You're not role-playing with a brother that you've been in the Chapter with for four years. Like, "I can do this with other people." It also has some cool events that you can spin off into special exclusive like, seniors and alumni activities. Like maybe before a tailgate at homecoming or during alumni weekend or something like that. And then all chapter, I really like, there's an etiquette session that's designed to be done, is a dinner date function. So, whether that's a grab a date or some other reason to kind of be fancy and dress up or maybe it's a swap or whatever your chapter may call it. And then, the last one I'll say then, I do want to hear Christopher's as a reigning LEAD chairman of the year, here, from his collegiate days.
0:49:57.3 Scott Smith: The accountability session in all Chapter, I think is always relevant, and it's a regularly requested session by Chapters for our consultant team to facilitate. I know I did that one a ton when I facilitated Chapters on the road. And that's mid-2000s, and this thing is still... It's just an everyday problem that Chapters have. So that's a cool one.
0:50:23.2 Adam Girtz: Christopher?
0:50:23.3 Christopher Brenton: I think, I have, I'll say two. They kind of work on the same level. So from phase 1, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, leadership and working in groups, which I think is session three, I think. That one, which has to be paired with the team building guide that we also have on the website, is just kind of our way of just pumping team building into the LEAD Program. And the team building guide, I mean Scott has referenced it, but is extensive and really comprehensive in every sort of camp, [chuckle] team builder, ice breaker, that you've ever done over the course of your life, but then also some really great initiative-based team building exercises that really help you walk through maybe a particular operational problem that, this can be a good metaphor or analogy for, and then help break down, how a Chapter might overcome that or like, think about something a little bit differently.
0:51:30.4 Christopher Brenton: I really love that one. And the nice thing about... For Chapters that come to Lexington, for our Chapter Pilgrimages, we have resources where you may be able to do those, have access to tools and resources to do those that you may not have access to at your chapter. So a plug for the pilgrimage process. The other one is from session two... Or sorry, phase two I mean. And that's leadership and working in groups. And we have... On... Well, you can request from the fraternity, copies of... How would you call them? Like leaders... What's the proper name for them, Scott? The inventories or the survival guides, survival exercises?
0:52:19.2 Adam Girtz: Survival challenge?
0:52:20.6 Scott Smith: Yeah. Simulation.
0:52:22.2 Christopher Brenton: Simulation, that's the word I'm looking for. So you have simulations that you can order from the fraternity. It's free for collegiate members to participate in this and use these simulations. I believe we have a Tropical and an Arctic survival simulation that you can walk through and it's just a really fun exercise for Chapters to role play a scenario of they're stranded on on a deserted island or they're stranded in the Arctic tundra. How would they survive? And then you kind of cross-reference your perceived survival strategies with an expert, and then also compare and contrast yourself with how you might perform individually versus how you would perform in a larger group, and you can see how group dynamics might shape your results for the better, but often for the worst. [laughter] And so it's a really great exercise, and so that one's always one of my favorites to facilitate and to participate in.
0:53:28.6 Adam Girtz: For listeners taking notes at home, that is Phase Two Session Six, Teams and Decision Making.
0:53:35.3 Scott Smith: Yes, yes it is. And that I think we just elucidated the point from the beginning there of what do I love about the program, and one of its strengths, there's something for everybody, and LEAD is for everybody because leadership is for everybody. Something that I think Chapters and individuals might struggle with here is in trying to put up these blinders or create these rules about LEAD and it's a certain way, and one of those is that it's only for Sigma Nu's, it's initiates only, and that's just not the case. This content was written with the general college student in mind, and as you look across the library of some 60 or 70 current sessions, you can count on one hand the number of Sigma Nu specific sessions, and on two hands, the ones that would only be relevant for a fraternity or sorority.
0:54:36.4 Scott Smith: So it's fun to hear the ones that you mentioned, and I think the other element that comes across in these ones that we have highlighted are that they are very interactive. They are ver, roll up your sleeves and do the thing, which I know is generally appealing to the college male audience.
0:55:00.2 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. So, Scott, before we move to the last portion of our conversation, which is going to be focused more on the future of the LEAD program, now, we are here in the current iteration of LEAD, what advice or where would officers go on the website to receive information on the LEAD program, how they can improve implementation of their LEAD program? Generally, I guess, what best practices would you share with listeners who just want to do more LEAD and receive the benefits that we've talked about?
0:55:34.9 Scott Smith: Yeah, so right off the top, resources, it's there for you, and anything that I will share as a follow-up, you can go and read about and see for yourself at sigmanu.org/leadchairman, or if you're just looking for facilitator materials or session listings, /lead. We also have an online participant resource library. So as I mentioned before, when we updated to version 3, we created all of this participant content. When we stopped doing the e-learning, we moved that into this resource library format. So rather than you go doing a session beforehand, it's more deep dive content for folks that... Yeah, maybe you did miss the session and you just want to know what was covered and you want to learn this new thing. Perfect. It's there for you. Maybe you're a volunteer that's going to facilitate this program and you want all the background you can get. Check out that online resource library. Maybe you're a student. You went through a session, and you're like, "Man, this is my jam. I'm loving this. Where do I get more?" The online resource library is for you as well. And you can find that off of the LEAD banner on any page of our site.
0:56:52.3 Scott Smith: But as far as like some specific advice, buy-in is critical, and a big part of the buy-in is helping to answer the question of, "What's in it for me?" "Hey guys, we're doing LEAD tonight." "So what. Why? What's in it for me? What am I going to learn? What is the skill I'm going to get? What's the cool thing we're going to do? Who is this knock my socks off speaker that you're bringing in to deliver this? Why would I go to this? How am I going to benefit?" And so one of the ways that you can help to show that, and another way that you can help to elevate the discourse, is to use guest facilitators at every opportunity. Guest facilitator is anybody that's not a current student member of the chapter. Maybe that's your student body vice president, maybe that's your chapter advisor, maybe it's a fraternity sorority advisor, maybe it's the president of your university, or the head football coach, maybe it's a chapter brother's mom, maybe it's the janitorial staff in your chapter facility. People that have real life experience and a story to share.
0:58:02.0 Scott Smith: It could be a member of the clergy. It could be a member of the city council, who has advice and help and is relevant. And so it's about identifying who are great people that would be out there. Every one of your members has a favorite professor, who does a great job in class. And then when I get that list of people, "Oh, these are all these cool ideas, Scott," now I just start matching people up with a session. And then the recruitment process is really easy. You go and you tell them something that they're not expecting to hear about fraternity, "Hey, will you help us with this personal or professional development? We've got a script, we've got a resource list, we've got material for you." Or, "Hey, you've got your own program that you're comfortable with, and it covers these same objectives? Well, let's do that."
0:58:49.5 Scott Smith: If you come and speak, I will get the people in the room, and you'll be surprised at how much easier it is to answer that, "What's in it for me?" or after the fact of like, wow, that was very helpful, and I'm going to be better off walking out of this room for reasons A, B and C, when you've brought in somebody that's just not another chapter brother in the chapter. Another piece for LEAD chairman, or even a LEAD advisor in specific, is to surround yourself with a committee of brothers who are dependable and who see the value in developing other brothers, personally, professionally and as Chapter and campus leaders. It doesn't matter what position those other brothers may or may not hold. Put yourself together a committee. If you're going to do more than one phase, it's going to take more than one person. So you're going to need help booking rooms, or advertising and reminding the Chapter of where to show up, of getting materials, of recruiting facilitators, of delivering thank you notes or gifts.
0:59:58.9 Scott Smith: Get some people around you that can help to manage this program because it can be very complex. At four-year in-school programs plus the all Chapter piece, you could be doing a LEAD thing, particularly when you have candidates, you'd be doing a LEAD thing every week as a Chapter. Beyond that, maybe a couple of times a month. So those are the advice pieces I have. I would say another related response is, one of my favorite activities to do with the LEAD program is to have members in the chapter, and you could do this as your LEAD Committee or your exec or your entire Chapter, or just with your advisory board, is to characterize the ideal member, the ideal Sigma Nu at different points in the Sigma Nu experience.
1:00:49.9 Scott Smith: What's the ideal candidate as he walks into initiation? What does he know? What does he know how to do? What is the experience? What skills does he have? What are the things the Chapter can influence or control? What about your general members, your sophomores and juniors? What is an ideal sophomore or junior look like? What do they know? What do they know how to do, skills, things that they've experienced as a part of the Chapter. Officers that you're electing. Same question. And then as you're about to walk across the stage at graduation to become alumnus.
1:01:20.6 Scott Smith: You take those four points of the collegiate career that almost all of us go through, and a single chapter, or I've done this with mixed groups across the country at institutes and other events, and what I know to be true is that 50% of the things that people come up with are synonyms for LEAD sessions. We want them to be able to manage their money. We want them to be able to... They need to understand the history or the traditions or the by-laws, or they need to be able to work as a team or... That's awesome. That's great. There's a LEAD session for that. If that's what you want, here's how you build it. Seventy-five percent of the things end up becoming either they're LEAD sessions or they're benefits of participating in LEAD.
1:02:06.5 Scott Smith: So, again, it's a great tool, but what is maybe the mind-blown part for the participants is when you look at that and then you go back and you look at your track record over the last two years and go, what percent of your brothers had all these things or most of these things that you say the chapter can and should provide, and they don't tell you it's 100%, like that's missed opportunity. What do we owe to those members? That's also, I think, very encouraging. If you're a LEAD chairman or a committee, you go, "All right. Now, I got a case for some LEAD. We want our candidates to be more this when they get initiated, or we want our people running for office to have more of this." Like, "Let's do this LEAD session. We have identified a pain point or a problem in the chapter that I can solve." And so I think that that is really cool and powerful.
1:02:58.7 Scott Smith: Some things to watch out for or some common justifications or rationalizations that I think Chapters use about LEAD is like scheduling concerns and over-programming. And I hear you, right? You're a college student, you have got a ton going on. School comes first, and you've got class and you've got study groups, and a lot of people are having to work, and you've got other relationships and clubs and things you want to do. And so as a LEAD chairman, the challenge becomes, "Well, how do I not just make this another thing on the calendar?" Like, "A, how do I make an appointment television? I've got an awesome guest facilitator or I've got a cool activity like a survival simulation or something else that we're going to do that draws bodies." Maybe you have a budget and you can ply people with free food or things like that, but how do I take existing events on the calendar and add a LEAD element into them?
1:04:00.7 Scott Smith: Well, we were doing this anyway, but what if we bring some other people along that are not in a Chapter, now it's a recruitment event. Or what if rather than just doing this date function tonight, we do it as an etiquette dinner and we learn some professional and personal etiquette here along with our date. Or what if we make this LEAD session an entry ticket into the mixer with the sorority that happens right after? Or, "Hey, seniors are already gathering at the house, alumni are already coming into town for the homecoming game. Why don't we put them together for a panel session on being a rockstar at work before you go start the tailgate?"
1:04:46.2 Scott Smith: Let's create these special and exclusive things, and not really adding on top of what people have to do, but trying to take this personal or professional development element and just kind of feather that in to the existing schedule. If you're out there thinking, "Man, this all sounds cool, but I'm in a Chapter that the pandemic really threw us off course with LEAD, or we didn't have a history of LEAD before that, maybe we do some phase one. Where do I go from here?"
1:05:15.8 Scott Smith: And my answer to that would be you've got, I think you've got two choices, either choice number one, you pick a candidate class and you follow that candidate class and you start building the LEAD program year by year with that class. So one phase at a time, phase one, then phase two, right? And in three years, boom, we've got a new tradition. We've always done it that way because everybody in the chapter is always just gone from one phase to the next. And now you're doing all of the LEAD program. My other response to that though would be like, go with the willing, right? Either do an activity like the what are your needs or just pass around a note card or put together a quick Google Form or survey and say, "What are topics or issues in the chapter that you guys would like to see us address?"
1:06:03.0 Scott Smith: And some of the things that they'll tell you will absolutely be names of or synonyms in the LEAD program. And others will be really off the wall stuff. Like I had a chapter one year that did this kind of a survey and they found that about half the brothers wanted to learn how to cook one meal really well so that they could impress a date. And the LEAD chairman was like, "It's not really a LEAD session, but yeah, let's do it." And they did it, man. And it was an awesome experience. And those guys got a life skill, right? And maybe their credentials went up on the dating scene. I don't know. But they had some brotherhood and some development in that. And so sometimes you just have to ask and you put it on for who's willing, right? Well, I've got a sophomore class of 30, but only 15 of them want to do phase 2. Awesome. Do an amazing program for this 15 people, right? Or, "Hey, as a Chapter, we've got issue X." "Well, okay, let's do a session on issue X. "Well, Scott, that's not an all chapter session. That's a phase 3 session." I don't care. Do it for everybody, right?" Don't be bound by this specific number in the phase or the session or something like that. Like if your Chapter has something and there's a tool available, use it.
1:07:15.8 Adam Girtz: Absolutely. Well, Scott, to wrap up our conversation, I'd love to ask about where we're headed? What is the ideal future state of LEAD? What's next for the LEAD Program?
1:07:31.4 Scott Smith: Yeah. So I think that the ideal future state is this widespread chapter in member use, right? Like I go back to the George Mason LEAD survey results. More LEAD is more better, right? There's this snowballing compounding effect. Not only you're better off than the average man walking around that didn't have a LEAD experience, but you're better off than the guy that just had a little bit of a LEAD experience as like as a freshman or maybe some all chapter here or there. I feel like members being able to see the direct tie between their values and their actions as well as being able to articulate the impact of their LEAD and Sigma Nu membership has had on them is ideal, right? There's not a real good way to measure this, but to me, our members should be graduating one to two years ahead in terms of personal and professional development compared to their non Sigma Nu peers, Greek or otherwise, right?
1:08:25.3 Scott Smith: Your fraternity experience, and I think when it's backed by a strong foundation and something like LEAD where this comes to the forefront of, hey, we are going to do ethical leadership development, help you prepare for citizenship on this campus and in this community and later on, I think that those experiences and those skills learned and those philosophies studied or frameworks tested and whatnot, that is on the job training before you even get on a job, right? You're going to come in one or two years ahead of your people you're getting hired alongside or in a tough job market, you're going to get the job if you're able to explain and articulate like, "Oh yeah, I've done this, and this is... I did it in my fraternity." Or, "I did it in a part of this LEAD program.
1:09:14.4 Scott Smith: In terms of what's next, and hopefully this helps with that last part is we've got another major update in the works. I told you we were on a nice 10-year cycle and we were delayed a little bit for a variety of reasons, but the pandemic being the big one. So we've got another major update in the works. I think it'll be close around the 35th birthday of the LEAD Program or somewhere thereafter. It's going to include a whole bunch of new curriculum. We have been testing stuff over the years in other venues at College Chapters and institutes that just never got into the program because of the way that it's structured. That we're going to pull off the shelf and we're going to put it into the library. We're building new curriculum, and I mentioned LEAD as an umbrella before, Adam, you're doing this day in and day out.
1:10:05.0 Scott Smith: We're actually in the midst of building a professional readiness program as well that we are going to put under the LEAD umbrella and will be a part of some different cohort experiences in LEAD as well, as well as standing alone as its own thing. But that's another part of the new curriculum. New resources, new resources for facilitators, new resources for advisors, new resources for LEAD chairman. And then what is probably the most striking about it is we're actually going to be changing the structure of the program a little bit. We're going to keep the student development theory in the four phase cohort model, but we are going to very intentionally and explicitly build around the four themes of LEAD, right? So every session will fit nicely into one of those buckets. Leadership or ethics or achievement or development, and the way that the fraternity defines those. We're going to standardize the number of sessions in a phase, right? And we're going to create some chapter choice where the fraternity will say, "Hey, there's eight sessions, you meet roughly monthly for phases two through four." We'll pick four to six of them each year and say, "These are the core ones that everybody's going to do." And then as a Chapter, you select from a larger library, and fill out your schedule to get yourself to once a month or eight per year.
1:11:33.4 Scott Smith: And so in addition to being able to get a certificate in LEAD, "Hey, I've finished LEAD, phase two", and what does that mean? We're going to create a certification system that fits into each of those themes. So if you get enough credits in leadership, you get a certificate, or in ethics, or in achievement, or what have you. And then one of the coolest pieces I'm really excited about and been working on for a while, is what's called a co-curricular transcript. So being able to not only help track what you have done in LEAD, but all the other things you've done in the Chapter and the fraternity. What events have you been to, have you visited headquarters, what offices have you held. And for a student or an alumnus to be able to pull up that transcript and see what was their Sigma Nu journey. And an expanded form of that that would lay out to them, what are all the bullet points to describe that. Okay, so this is code for, "We're writing your resume, we're writing your LinkedIn profile for you." "You are the treasure of a chapter," what does that mean? Well, it means this, this, this, and this.
1:12:49.1 Scott Smith: How do you... When you go and sit across from someone in a job interview and they go, "Oh, tell me about your experience in managing conflict with your peers." "Well, let me tell you about this," and you just start reading from these little... From your transcript, and be able to see how your fraternity experience actually prepared you for so many other life experiences. So I'm really excited about that piece as well that'll come alongside. It's not just a LEAD transcript, but it's a larger Sigma Nu transcript.
1:13:20.2 Christopher Brenton: That's awesome.
1:13:23.4 Adam Girtz: Yeah, very excited. Very excited to see that. I think that's going to be... I would always tell Chapters on the road, "LEAD is a way that you can deliver on the promise that you make during recruitment." That this is a developmental experience and LEAD is an excellent tool towards that in an organized way. Well, Scott, any final thoughts? Christopher, any final thoughts?
1:13:45.9 Christopher Brenton: I'll yield to Scott.
1:13:48.3 Scott Smith: Yeah, just to tack on to your last point there, Adam. I think it's easy for us to retreat to this default position in the chapter of like, "You owe Sigma Nu." That's a very easy line of, "Hey, pay your dues," like, "You owe us" or, "Come to this event, because that's what you owe, that's what you signed up for." "Do this house job," or whatever. We can fall into that as a poor accountability tool. But I think the LEAD program allows us the opportunity to really explore and make good on, "What does LEAD... What does Sigma Nu owe you?". "What does the chapter owe the individual member?" "What did we sell them?" Well, we sold you this amazing experience that was going to be developmental and create these networks for you, and make you a better person and leader. And I think LEAD helps to deliver on that, to provide what is owed to that individual member.
1:14:55.4 Christopher Brenton: Well, the one thing I would add is that I just wanted to remind folks that if you're a listener of the podcast, that we regularly provide comprehensive show notes that you can find in your podcast app. This is another episode that because it is so resource-heavy, and Scott has outlined a ton of different resources and advice, but also information like the George Mason Assessment, we're going to provide all of that in the show notes. So if listeners are really intrigued by the conversation and want to do an even deeper dive themselves, they can find those resources. So in your podcasting app, wherever you are listening, usually there's an icon that will allow for you to access more information about each individual episode. You want to go there to access all of these resource links. We'll make sure that they are provided based on all the stuff and goodies that Scott shared with us.
1:16:01.9 Adam Girtz: Yes. Well, and if you're a rockstar LEAD chairman, and this episode was more a recap for you of things that you already know and do well, we would love to have you on the staff team. As a reminder, the staff hiring deadline is October 15. So find more information in the shownotes and on our website. Scott Smith, Director of Leadership Development for the fraternity. Thank you so much for being on the show again, repeat guest. Your challenge coin is in the mail.
1:16:28.8 Scott Smith: Well, you are very welcome. And I'm honored to be a repeat guest, I hope to get to come back again. We got a lot of other programs that I'd love to dive deep on, and other ways to help make chapters better, and make people's lives better. But it's a pleasure to be here and it's really a pleasure to get to do this work. I'm honored and humbled to have been around for a while with the fraternity.
1:16:57.1 Christopher Brenton: Absolutely.
1:16:57.5 Adam Girtz: Excellent. Well, listeners, thank you so much. We will see you next time.
1:17:00.0 Christopher Brenton: Take care.
[Outro Music]