Abstract:
The Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) has a detailed, comprehensive leadership development program called Taking the Lead, which was developed by leadership guru, Ken Blanchard (Cornell FIJI, 1961). The topics covered in the Taking the Lead series are DISCovering Your Personal Style (which is the DISC leadership personality-type assessment), Situational Self-Leadership: Taking the Lead When You're NOT in Charge, Situational Leadership II: Taking the Lead When You ARE in Charge, and Servant Leadership: Taking the Lead for a Greater Purpose. The Fraternity also has its own pledge education program. Part of the pledge education experience is the Big Brother Little Brother relationship. Every new member is assigned a Big Brother, an older member in the fraternity, to act as a mentor to the Little Brother, a new member/pledge. Unfortunately there is no one-on-one leadership training; there is no leadership program to develop mentors. The pledge education program only has expectations of Big Brothers and guidelines for activities for the Big and Little Brothers to do together, such as studying, working out, attending sporting events together, and several others. There is nothing that teaches fraternity members about how to motivate, develop others, encourage and provide positive feedback. This mission of Phi Gamma Delta reads, "Phi Gamma Delta is committed to provide opportunities for each brother to develop responsibility, leadership, scholarship, and social skills to become a fully contributing member of society. " The goal of this thesis is to explore, research, and analyze the theory of mentorship, utilize Phi Gamma Delta's Big Brother program as well as the programs of other fraternities, and create a structured, comprehensive training manual regarding mentorship and how it relates to being a Big Brother. When this thesis is complete, an applicable and implementable program will be available for review and potential use by the International Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta. More importantly, when this thesis is complete, there will be a leadership development program that will help fraternity members grow in all four of the main areas in the Mission of Phi Gamma Delta: responsibility and leadership for the Big Brother and scholarship and social skills for the Little Brother through mentorship.
