I’m the president of a new club at our school and work alongside three other members. Unfortunately, though we have huge plans, I’m the only one who actually executes anything. I honestly have been carrying my club throughout our entire summer camp planning process, and I’m the only one who even sets meetings or works on information packets or sends confirmation emails or even responds to messages. I’m getting burned out and bitter about this, but I don’t want this to happen as I love my club and what we do. However, I was wondering if anyone had any advice that could push them to do more work as well as suggestions for ways I could stop being such a control freak about work quality (which eventually forces me to do all the work instead of leaving it undone).
I have the same problem with group activities as well. I want to monitor and control everything that is happening, but end up getting burnt out when I do the amount of work that was intended for several people. I’m imagining that if you started a club with these people, they’re probably fairly close friends? Depending on how close you guys are, that’ll change how you want to approach this. You could say, “Hey, I’ve done a lot of setting up meetings for the club and I’m feeling burnt out. Do you think you could organize the next one/help me out/pull ya gosh darn weight?”
Another Idea: Talk with the group before you do this, but you could make a “responsibilities table”, list what needs to be done and a day of the week or something. Then have the other member sign up for what they want to do. So, maybe Joe-Bob signs up for “Answering messages - Tuesday”. It sounds childish but it could really help. Organization isn’t childish
Basically, you might have to do a lot of hand-holding to get them to help you at first. If you’re close friends just say, “I’m doing a lot of the work and I need help” If you’re not, it’s going to take some more finessing. One last thing: People really hate being told they’re wrong. It’s too bad, but it’s just the way it is. Talk in terms of “I” “I feel tired” not, “You don’t do the work”. “I would feel a lot better if we all worked equally” not, “You should work just as hard as I do” You don’t want to make any grudges or even enemies while you’re trying to balance out productivity. That’s something my mom (a business manager) told me and it has really helped me out in a lot situations.
Good Luck!
Do you have a moderator who decides who gets credit for the activity? It might be time to get her/him involved.
@Qipsoma , thank you so much! see below for more problems haha
@bjkmom it’s hard because the other leaders still do work, but just not timely and whenever i try to assign jobs, they all ignore me…
Things to consider:
- Is the schedule you have realistic? Do they have input?
- Are the tasks of interest to them?
- Do they feel “why bother working hard on this because emeraldhearts will just redo it?”
- Can you empower them to solve the problems? “We still need the xyz project done…who can take this on? I have am doing abc and Pqr projects.”
Wait, You’re “doing all the work by (my)self… I’m the only one who actually executes anything. I honestly have been carrying my club throughout our entire summer camp planning process,” but " the other leaders still do work, but just not timely."
Which is it? Are you doing all the work? Or do you simply not like the style of everyone else? Is this just a vent because your leadership styles are different or is this worthy of taking to your moderator?
Sometimes, when it seems like it’s you against the rest of the world, the rest of the world isn’t wrong. Is this one of those times?