Zane Wilhelm

The quote from Harold S. Geneen, “Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned,” is a perfect example of my familiarity with being a member of student council. I have learned many things from my five years of being a member. I have witnessed many forms of leadership. Being a member on student council, I spent many of my early years watching the guiding hand of the previous presidents and learning from their triumphs and failures, while waiting for my time to lead. The key to respectable leadership is taking a look at other leaders, and learning from their mistakes and triumphs; a good leader also has to learn from himself or herself to adapt to the task at hand.

As I learned to be a leader, I gained knowledgeable insights in organizing and planning activities for our school. Our school’s student council is the chief, if not only student organization to plan major activities that involve all the student population. This year our student council planned and carried out one of the most successful homecomings in attendance in the recent years of our school. Attendance to the Homecoming dance was almost three quarters of the student population, making it one of the most successful in my high school career. Along with the homecoming dance, our school also plans a spirit fun day, which is a day were all high school students get off to play many games, and participate in many activities. Most of our activities were planned to take place outside, but due to a pop up shower we had to quickly change our plans for inside activities. Through the planning of the homecoming dance, and the spirit fund day, I have learned that there are many more aspects to leadership than I had thought. Even though it was considered a success by many people’s standards, I still noticed many mistakes that could have been prevented. What I took from our planning of homecoming most was leadership, even in successful leadership, there is still room to learn and improve.

The most