My Leadership Philosophy

Leadership is the driving force behind every change and every major social movement in history. The ability to influence others through actions and language in order to achieve a certain goal or outcome. Every person in every walk of life anywhere on the planet has experienced either being a leader or being influenced by a leader. Personally, I have held multiple leadership positions whether elected or appointed in many different areas of my life. From Student Council and volleyball to jobs and family matters, being a leader has always been a part of my identity.
In elementary school it was my absolute dream to join the student council and help them with their activities like purchasing Christmas presents for needy children or putting on
With each of these positions I had officers or a committee working under me and looking to me for guidance. Initially, I did not know how to handle this kind of responsibility or pressure. I was not very good at delegating and tended to take on an entire project by myself rather than telling people what to do. It took until about the middle of junior year when I was completely overwhelmed by my class load, volleyball, track, anxiety issues, and student council on top of everything for me to ask for help. I was blown away by how willing the people under me were to get things done and take part of the load off me. This was the beginning of the evolution of my view of leadership. It took seventeen years for me to realize that it takes a team through collaboration and communication to most efficiently and successfully complete tasks and reach desired outcomes that will please everyone and not just the person who is “in
Similarly, it is important to remember that although one might be a leader, he or she is also the member of a support system for someone else. I think this was one of my biggest lessons in leadership. It did not come from being elected or appointed to some fancy position or office. It came from realizing the amount of influence I had over my younger sister. As a sophomore and junior in high school, I was not healthy in my eating habits due to the amount of stress I felt. I compensated for that with obsessively monitoring caloric intake and exercise, and the result of this was a massive amount of weight loss. This period of time is not something of which I am proud, and I felt even more shame when I noticed negative body image comments coming from my younger sister. I was even more distressed when I noticed her eating less and less. It took me making an obvious change and focusing on healthy habits and foods for her to come around as well. The most important thing for everyone to internalize is that every single one of us is a leader in some regard to someone, so we need to live in a way that we would be proud of them for