Chapter Management: Effective Leadership Transitions

Hopefully, you’ve been building your leadership pipeline throughout the year, and now it’s time for those members to take on newer and bigger roles within the chapter.

Read more about Leadership Transitions here.

Why plan a leadership transition?

• Provide for the transfer of significant organizational knowledge.
• Minimizes the confusion of leadership changeover.
• Gives outgoing leaders a sense of closure.
• Celebrates the valuable contributions of experienced leaders.
• Helps incoming leadership absorb the special expertise of the outgoing leadership.
• Increases the knowledge and confidence of the new leadership.
• Minimizes the loss of momentum and accomplishments for the group.

Below is a worksheet for your incoming and outgoing officers to fill out. Set a deadline for officers to complete the form, and have them meet before your end of year retreat or final chapter meeting to discuss. Officers should send their completed forms to the Secretary or President to store in a Google Drive folder to pass down for future records.

Incoming Officers:

• Goals for the Position:
• What position-specific questions do I want to know about (timelines, duties, etc.)?
• Things I should do or want to do over the summer…
• Other students, faculty, and staff I should get to know…
• Resources and services I need to know about…
• Things I need to know about working with my campus advisor…
• One University policy I really want to know about…
• Other questions I want answered…

Outgoing Officers:

• Contact Information (cell phone, future email) and Preferred Method of Contact:
• Email, Website, or Social Media Accounts/Passwords To Share:
• Timelines of important tasks/events:
• What forms does this officer position need to complete?
• How would you like to stay involved with the chapter (as an alumnus/a, serving on a committee or as an advisor, etc.):
• What made you successful in the position?
• What challenges did you face in the position?
• Who did you work with in this role?
• What is a goal you had that you were not able to start/complete?
• Any other unfinished business for the incoming officer to be aware of?
• Things I wish I’d known before I took office were…
• One University policy I didn’t expect or really had trouble with was