Lexi Cullen serves as president of Theta Beta chapter at Coastal Carolina University. A junior from Marlboro, NJ, she is studying special education. This is Lexi’s second year serving in an executive board role, serving as vice president of operations last year. She recently had an opportunity to attend The Value of Disagreement Webinar in conjunction with Collegiate Leadership Summit.
Facilitated by the authors of I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening) and podcast co-hosts Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, this program focused on how healthy disagreement is valuable in any organization and practical ways to draw out, discuss, and work through disagreement.
Lexi took a few minutes to share her thought on the session and how she has used this to help better connect with her Theta Beta sisters.
As a Vice President of Operations, I spent the majority of my time checking items off the checklist and making sure each officer was fulfilling her responsibility and completing the requirements of her position. When I was elected to serve as President, I quickly realized that this role wasn’t about checking boxes, but instead was about checking in with our sisters.
Hearing the speakers talk about disagreement from a “real life” perspective allowed me to think through how we could incorporate opportunities for more sisters to be able to share honestly and openly, not just with me as the president but with our entire executive committee.
After participating in the program, our executive committee immediately put in place a way for sisters to offer feedback and suggestions. We recognized that we could not take what was being shared personally and that we wouldn’t be able to “fix” everything that was brought forward, and that it was still important to make sure our sisters felt heard and could come forward without discomfort or judgement.
Our executive committee has also added an open-door policy during our weekly meetings where we delegate our last 15 minutes of our meeting to any sister who wishes to come in and openly talk with us about anything on her mind. It goes undocumented just to give them another opportunity to discuss with us any issues they may have personally or during these times. This is a sisterhood, and we want our sisters to feel safe sharing their concerns.
This program was funded by a grant from the Alpha Delta Pi Foundation, and Lexi shared how much she appreciates that this presentation applies to every aspect of our lives and wasn’t specific only to her role within the sorority.
