If there is one thing that every boss knows then, that their job is not easy. You are going to face difficulties left and right even outside of the school. Three of these problems are dealing with public relations and are the press, speeches, and community. A club that wants to last past the years of their first leader has to deal with these three in some way or another. We will not only just talk about these issues but the ways that you can properly deal with them along with a few extra touches to make your show excel. As John T. Chirban Ph.D., Th.D. said, “How you act today will have a huge impact on who your child becomes as an adult. A confident stance, conscious of the example you are setting, is the best approach for guiding your children toward healthy adulthood.”
You VS The Press
Now the press can be one of two things, the school or papers. If your school has a paper, then you are bound to run into this as a problem, but the moment that you get into the papers then this is one of the extremes. One way or another you did something that got you a lot of attention in your town, but first, let us discuss the school paper. Clubs and the school news should always be hand in hand because outside of fliers this is going to be the only way that you can relay information to the public. This can either be for ads or announcements. The exposure, in general, is good but what if you get some bad exposure than just weather the storm. This is a different issue when the papers give you some bad exposure.
Sadly there is little that you can do if you manage to get yourself some bad exposure in the news. One of the first things that you should do is talk to the principal of the school to try your best to explain what happened. Most likely as a leader, you will keep your nose clean but when you get some good exposure in the news then revel in it. Frame it somewhere in the club and make sure that you get this juicy tidbit to the school paper for a little more good exposure.
You VS Speeches
This is a rare opportunity, but at some point, the school might ask you to speak publically about your club. This should take priority number one because if you nail this, then you will see a lot of people that are interested in your organization. The last thing that you want to do is get known as the boring or lame club because you did not prepare for this. The following tips can easily be applied to other types of speeches as well:
*Practice your speech in the mirror and try to learn your speech cover to cover.
*Take your time to know your audience so if it is front of teachers then try to be as informative as possible.
*Let your personality and club shine through it because that will attract a broader audience.
*Use your hands and voice effectively, and try to delete all nervous ticks. (such as ‘Uhm,’ ‘like,’ etc.)
*You can never get a speech perfect so try to make all your mistakes light-hearted and get some humor out of it.
You VS The Community
Out of all the things, this is one that matters the most because if your community supports you, then you will never fall. This is by no means easy as this means doing a lot of things for free. “Effective leadership usually results from convincing members to sacrifice their own benefit for the greater good,” says Chengwei Liu Ph.D. Most likely just you and a few dedicated members are going to do this task unless your club is specifically about helping the community. If it is not some general things that you can do is cleaning up or doing yardwork. Anything that your community needs to be done then free work will be appreciated. It is not like the tasks that will be doing will leave you thankless as this should get you some good exposure from both the press and speeches. One of the worst things that can happen is that you can hurt the community because just as much as they will lift you, they will use that same amount of effort to tear you down. The only thing that you can do is profusely apologize and try to fix any of the misdeeds that you did.
If you can master juggling between these three spheres of influence, then you will be able to wrestle public relations in any way that you want. As stated by psychologist Brett Laursen, Ph.D., “The first thing I think that parents can do is that they can help children recognize that attempts to influence them are everywhere.” A good club leader can handle the public to have them keep your club afloat for years. Whatever you do then do not disregard public relations because you will fade to dust the moment that you do.