A True Leader by Anna

A True Leader by Anna - October 2013 Scholarship Essay

If you are a leader, you are a leader; you do not need a title of president or captain to prove it. Unfortunately, the people who receive those titles are often not leaders or do not excel in these positions. This was the case on the 2012 CHS volleyball team. At the start of our season, each girl voted for two people she thought would be great captains. The leading vote getter and the coach’s pick would be our captains for that year. To my disappointment, I was not selected as captain. However, I quickly realized that I could still be a leader and that the lack of a title would not prohibit me from leading by example and working hard every day. So I dug in and got to work, trying to make this volleyball team the best Carrboro had ever seen. In August and September everything went relatively smoothly. We were beating the teams we should beat and competing against some of the area’s top volleyball schools. But then September ended. We had spent the last two months living and breathing each other’s sweat and people began to lose the desire to give 100% all the time. Practice began to be a drag; we would take twice as long to finish drills we had been doing since August. We began to snap at each other after every mishit ball or shanked pass. Our coach saw this and tried his best to pull the team back together before the playoffs. But even he seemed frustrated. He called on the captains time after time to bring more energy to practice, but never seemed happy with what they brought.

After realizing that practice was a drag for many of the girls and hearing our coach beg the captains for energy, I realized what my role would become. I evolved from leading by example, working hard every play, to working hard and celebrating it. I cheered loudly during practice, reinvigorating my teammates with the same passion we all had at the beginning of the season. Sometimes, my leadership came at the cost of me looking like a fool, dancing around the locker room before practice, helping everybody to relax after stress-filled days of school. During that time I paid special attention to my comments, making sure that every loud cheer was just that a cheer, celebrating a positive play, not tearing someone down because of a mistake. Our playoff run ended in a disappointing second round loss.

This season things are different. People are eager to reward those who step up and make a difference. I am now one of the team’s two co-captains. While I know firsthand that I did not need the title of captain to be a leader on the team, I am grateful to my teammates for acknowledging my leadership and motivation last season in the form of a captainship this year. Last year we did not go as far as we should have gone in the state playoffs. Now, I see why. The lack of motivation that began in October was allowed to continue for too long. I saw it happen and I chose to wait to see if the captains or someone else would step up to solve the problem. No one confronted the issue immediately and by the point it was confronted it had penetrated deep within our team. In some ways I hope that people begin to feel that same lack of motivation at the beginning of October this year because I will be on the lookout for it. This time, instead of waiting for someone else to step up and fix the problem I am going to kill it when it starts. Maybe after we win the state championship we will hold its memorial service or maybe we will just celebrate its death.

The experience of leading from within, without a title was invaluable. I learned that I do not need a title to be a leader. Now that I have the title I want to use it to help my teammates recognize what I realized last year--having a title does not define a leader. Everybody is a leader in his or her own right and our team will be the most successful when everybody recognizes this.