- THE UBERTARIAN PARTY'S SUCCESS '992600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100 *Washington DC 20037 * (202) 333-0008 *www.LP.org

How to be a more effective state or local ChairThe job of Chair in the LPis very tough.

The Chair needs organizational andadministrative skills, diplomacy, sales ability,people skills - while understanding whatLibertarianism is all about. The Chair needspatience, self control, and an ego capable ofdealinq with criticism and abuse withoutresentment.

Beyond this, the Chair needs to have goodjudgment and be an effective listener. It takescreativity to deal with grossly inadequatefinances and far too few effective volunteers.The Chair should get as much help as possible.

This combination of traits is rare.

It is easy to get frustrated. Inevitably, theChair discovers the job has far moreresponsibility than authority. The Chair's real"power" comes from the personal respect he/shereceives from the members and the Board orCommittee. This respect must be earned.

gI!~ keyrole of the Chair is,toresolveconflict and find ways to get people to worktogether effectively. In many cases, this meansmediating disputes. In other cases, it meansfinding ways to work with the Chair's critics tofind reasonable solutions. In all cases, it meansstaying calm and making sure people focus onthe issues and not on personality clashes.

The Chair has the responsibility to make thefirst move when a problem comes up, and bewilling to admit he/she may be wrong.

The Chair must be thoughtful and avoidacting rashly.

Proposals should be well thought out priorto presentation and implementation. This meantalking ideas over with as many people aspossible and listening to what they have to say.It means being flexible enough to change theplan when good suggestions are made.

"l'heChairshould encourage participationand seek the input of others before decisionsare made. People work harder for proposals theyhelped to develop.

The Chair needs to understand the"business" of running the organization. Thisincludes fund-raising, budgets and finance,database management, inquiry processing,newsletter publishing, etc. These "details" candestroy the organization if they are not handledcorrectly. And beyond all of this, the Chair mustunderstand libertarians.

TIPS ON BEING A BETTERSTATE/LOCAL CHAIR>- Like most people, Libertarians want courtesy

and respect.

»Libertarians want to know "why" somethinghas to be done.

»Libertarians resist "taking orders" and alwaysrespond better to being asked to dosomething than being ordered to dosomething.

»Libertarians are very independent and mayrequire being "sold" on the worth of theactivity.

>- Libertarians need to feel that their efforts areappreciated and their ideas valued.

>- Libertarians respond better to encouragementand recognition than to criticism and "guilttrips."

>- Since there is no patronage and little money,success will come only from the energy andcreativity of the volunteers. The Chair's roleis to find ways to make it easier for people tobe more effective. This means finding ways tomake activism fun and rewarding.

»- The job of Chair is not suited to "primadonnas." The effective Chair does not seekrecognition, but instead seeks to recognizethe accomplishments of others. The Chair willaccept the blame for failures, even those ofothers. Loyalty starts from the top.

>- No one is perfect, so it makes sense to makeeffective use of many different kinds ofpeople. The Chair needs to know his/herstrengths and weaknesses, and recruit peoplewith complementary skills.

>- Finally, the Chair needs a sense of humor.Without it, the job will drive him/her crazy.

Few people are ideally suited to being Chair,but most people can be effective if theyunderstand what needs to be done and whatbeing Chair means.

[By George O'Brien]