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Find your own style

Make it your own. Lead the way you want to. Don't try to reinvent the whole group, but bring your own touch to the group. It will be refreshing for the members to have a leader with a new style. Let your personality shine through. Let people get to know who you are as a person. They will form a connection with you if you do.

Listen to the members, and try to adapt when they are asking for something different. One bit of feedback that I was getting from people when I was new was that people like to have a 5-10 minute mixer at near the beginning of the meeting. This is something that I really struggled with when I was new to the role. I couldn't come up with ideas for mixers. The president before me always seemed to have mixers planned for every meeting. When I first started, I didn't have mixers because I just couldn't think of what to do. Eventually I started coming up with ideas, but I still didn't have one for every meeting. 

I did a newsletter in a blog format. This was something that you may not feel like continuing. That's OK if you don't. Just do what you feel comfortable with. Don't do things that you don't feel like, just because they were done that way before.

Believe it or not I see myself as a bit shy. I tried not to let it show, but I don't feel like a natural speaker in front of people. It did get better over time as I got used to it. At times I still get a bit of a brain freeze when talking in front of people. I start a sentence and suddenly forget a word or the ending of what I was saying. It is embarrassing when it happens, but people were very forgiving. Even when I thought that I didn't do a very good job, people would always tell me I did! I feel that my leadership skills have improved over the years that I was President. This is something that has helped me at my job as well. I have become a stronger leader in my workplace too! This is a benefit of the role that I didn't anticipate. Perhaps you will also feel that this role will have unexpected benefits.