As a rising senior in high school, I feel that I have matured greatly from my freshman and sophomore years. As many seniors would agree, a lot of this personal growth has taken place through extracurricular activities. What I’ve found, however, is that I’ve grown most by putting myself into positions of responsibilities in these extracurricular activities. In the rush to secure a leadership position to put on one’s resume or college application, we commonly forget that leadership is innately rewarding, especially for high school students.
The thing about leadership that no one tells you, is that it takes a lot of time to do a good job, no matter your position in the leadership of a club or team. And the thing is, it doesn’t really matter what your position is because collaboration is almost always required to do a good job leading these sorts of organizations.
In short, the capacity in which you lead doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you put yourself in some position of responsibility and that you then put in enough time to fulfill your responsibilities. If you fail, put in enough time to understand why you failed and to remedy the situation. Always ask observers what you can do to improve your leadership, no matter your performance. If you put yourself in a position of responsibility and work hard in that capacity, you will become more responsible — I know I have.
John Krause-Steinrauf
McLean