Are leadership skills necessary for college success? Why or why not? by Cesar

Are leadership skills necessary for college success? Why or why not? by Cesar - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

Yes. In order to have success in college, a student must have or develop leadership skills such as motivation and confidence shown by humility and modesty. Modesty is the ability to assess ourselves realistically and to know and admit limitations. This trait can help not to overstretch themselves on assignments. For example, in the corporate world a leader must determine if his company is capable to fulfill a prospective client demands and expectations. Not doing so would result in breach of contract and/or loss of reputation, among other consequences which are detrimental for business success.

Likewise, a college student must have modesty to realistically assess how many courses, work hours, and other responsibilities they could undertake per semester in order not to overstretch themselves. For example, take into consideration a juggler that is able to deal at once with 4 balls maximum. If he suddenly decides to juggle with six balls at once, then, some balls are going to fall if not all of them. Similarly, a college student must be modest in his juggling of responsabilities in order not to drop any or fall into mediocrity in his endeavors, as it can be detrimental for college success.

Confidence requires humility, which in turn requires substantial inner strength to accept constructive criticism as tool to better our knowledge or ways of doing business more efficiently. A person that has a conceitedness trait would interpret constructive criticism as a threat and would not allow a person to improve weak spots, whereas a humble person will not hesitate to ask for help. Accepting that no one person has all answers, or that our way is not the only way of doing things, or to acknowledge that a subordinate is better at certain role, would help a leader to inspire subordinate’s creativity and input which would benefit leader and subordinate alike. A leader of an organization that is humble is like a pilot of a huge plane that relies on the input of his flight engineer and co-pilot to stear the plane from bad weather. A leader that must stear an organization must be humble to acknowledge and value the opinions of those around him, in order to attract and retain valued human resources that are fundamental for leadership success.

Similarly, in order to be successful in college, humility is essential because without it a student would not be able to learn. Students are repelled by arrogance. Arrogance is shown in many forms, for example, a student may think he knows and has answers to everything, or they may talk only about themselves and their interests, or they would try to get all credit for group work. Who wants to tag along with such person? An arrogant student soon finds himself alienated from other students, mentors, and professors. Sadly when this occurs, the human resources necessary for success in college are nulled because guidance and connections to other people are lost. Contrary a humble student would not be threatened by given credit or praise to other student. A humble student would not hesitate in asking help or advice to peers, professors, advisors, and tutors. A humble student would talk less and listen more to acquire more knowledge. Humility is a leadership trait that, when adopted by a college student, will help them attract and retain valued human resources that are fundamental for college success.

Motivation is another leadership trait needed for college success. Motivation it’s like a motor under the hood of a car, some have four, six, eight cylinders, or more. Motor power is proportional to the number of cylinders, thus, some people have more motivational power than others. Moreover, a motor needs fuel and motivation needs fuel as well. As car motor fuel comes in different grades, so is motivation fuel. For example, some leader’s motivation fuel is money, power, acceptance, status, conquering a challenge, inter satisfaction, pride of achieving, learning and exploring. A leader gets motivated because they have a vision, a clear purpose and a well thought-out practical plan and possibly an alternative plan to achieve short and long term objectives. Vision, purpose, goals, plans are essential to stay focused as setbacks and internal or external negativity may lead a leader to misspend valued energy, time, money and could undercut motivation for themselves and those who follow them.

Likewise, motivation is essential for college success. College requires motivational fuel, be it desire to earn more money, family acceptance, trill of learning, exploring and achieving. The fact is that a college student must keep motivated by remaining focused, knowing what they want, having an overall plan and an alternate plan strategy as to what, how and when to accomplish any short and/or long term academic goals. For example, a college student that does not plan may be inclined to procrastinate, or loose focus leading to stress and underperformance. In turn, underperformance may lead to frustration and depression, which in turn undercuts motivation ultimately leading to college failure.

In order to have college success, leadership skills such as motivation, humility and modesty, are necessary. Motivation can help a college student stayed focused and plan his path for success. Humility would help attract and retain valued human resources such as peers, professors, advisors which are essential for college success. Finally, modesty will prevent a student from overstretching responsabilities which may lead to underperformance; this in turn would be detrimental for college success.