SIS high school Vice Principal Gray Macklin writes in response to Erin Choi’s article on implementing a follow-through system for club executives.

Dear Editors,

I am writing in response to Erin Choi’s piece on a follow-through system for club executives. One of the most interesting implications of the piece is that it indirectly takes a side in one of the ongoing debates about clubs at SIS: Do students run them or do advisors run them? If there is to be a system of accountability for executives transitioning new executives, who else can oversee that but the advisor? Additionally, such a system also requires that the advisor have an understanding of what constitutes essential knowledge that needs to be passed on. These are not negatives, but they will require some slight change in the student perspective of executives and advisors in club management and leadership.

That leads to another topic the piece opens up for discussion among club advisors and members: the difference between management and leadership. As it stands, a system of accountability that institutionalizes the transmission of knowledge and experience might struggle to find success since, as stated in the article, current executives never had the benefit of such a program. So much energy is spent on management that there is not time for cultivating leadership capacity within the clubs themselves. Most club executives think of themselves as leaders when, in fact, they are managers.  There is a part of a follow-through system that would improve the transmission of management responsibility, but the real lack is in a depth of leadership capacity coming into executive positions.