To Be a Leader by Adams

To Be a Leader by Adams - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

When you walk into a job interview what do you imagine? An empty chair sitting across from a middle-aged man or women, a dimly lit back office, questions about your moral integrity, past job experiences, and maybe if you’re lucky, a brief joke about something funny that happened at work recently. Perhaps you leave feeling unsatisfied with your answers, or maybe you should have worn the blue button-up shirt instead of the black and green flannel. In all honesty, you’re probably overthinking it. Businesses aren’t looking for the girl with perfect hair or the guy with a charming smile, they’re looking for leaders. So are all the prestigious universities spread across the country.

Believe me, being a leader is not easy. It’s a constant process, and for me at times it can be a daily grind. I thought for a lot of High School I could be the one in the back silently taking notes and simultaneously pumping out A’s on my transcript, and it worked, sometimes. What I found is that each class is different, each teacher comes with different rules, and each test seems to get harder. This is especially true when I got to college. I realized that at times I had to be the one to lead group projects and discussions, to save the team.

But, even more importantly then that I realized I had to be a leader for myself. I had to be bold and honest with my teachers and my classmates at times, especially when my grade was on the line. College doesn’t hand you a lot of “free point cards”. I had to learn to manage my time and do what was necessary to succeed. Whether it was writing a surprise paper on “The Political Sphere of Abraham Lincoln” or studying 5 hours for Math 990 (help me). At times you have to learn to sacrifice even, whether it be friends, sleep, social outings. It can come down to the wire, and you either get to play the leader or the follower.

Playing the leader is added amounts of pressure, but it can be fun as well. To be admired, well spoken, and a great communicator are things I think most businesses and people in general look for in others. It comes with it’s challenges, but every good seed can grow into a tree. However, no tree grows without a storm.

No greater “storm” comes to mind then that of the near academic death experience of Spanish 1020. We had a group project, four people to be exact, and had to give an oral presentation about the culture and people of Argentina. I speak pretty decent Spanish so I was confident we were going to succeed with flying colors. Suddenly, our four man project went to 3 after a classmate took a vacation, and then again to 2, after another was sick for a week. Normally I wouldn’t freak out that much, but it was 25% of my grade. Suddenly I too, was sick from doing the work of now 3 people. I stepped up with my other project member and we were able to submit our presentation 10 minutes before the deadline. I think I pulled 2 all nighters and had 20 cans of Dr. Pepper. I nearly died that week.

But I didn’t, and in turn my grade went up. I also learned an invaluable lesson. Good work is often hard work, and hard work requires sacrifice. These are all leadership skills, it’s not just raising your hand to be named “Project Leader”. It’s developing the traits needed to succeed in college courses, and then to apply what you’ve learned to the working world. It’s building blocks for the rest of your life, and you can be sure that our leaders are looking for more leaders; not followers or the student who sits in the back of the class playing Trivia Crack on their Ipad.

Are leadership skills necessary for college success? Of course they are, but that depends on how you define success. You can be successful at getting A’s in Anatomy, but the success I think that’s important in college is the type of leadership traits you develop that will carry on after college is over. To know how to work hard, to be a good friend, to make sacrifices when needed, and to be a reliable student. That’s the kind of success and leadership the working world wants to see in individuals, and that we hopefully want to see in ourselves.