Future Business LEADER? by Luci

Future Business LEADER? by Luci - December 2019 Scholarship Essay

I joined FBLA my sophomore year, after hearing from a friend that the club looked great on college applications. I quickly discovered that it would be much more to me than a checkmark on applications—I made friends, learned new skills, and found success in competitions. I got to know and become friends with upperclassmen, something I had always been afraid of despite having classes with many of them. I challenged myself to compete in a public speaking event, despite my painfully shy, quiet nature, and I qualified for the state level competition in that event. That year, I qualified for the National Leadership Conference (NLC) held in Baltimore for my performance in the Introduction to Business Communications event. Attending NLC that year with three other students from my chapter, including that year and the following year’s presidents, was an eye-opening experience. I had never interacted much with the chapter president, an exuberant, overwhelmingly positive individual, prior to this, and I was shocked to discover that her true personality was not the same as her enthusiastic leader persona. Getting to know and understand her better as both a leader and a person made me think that maybe leadership was more possible for me than I thought.
At the end of the following year, I decided to run for president of my local chapter, against two others, and I won. Although I I was committed to the club and had a lot of ideas for how to improve it, I was also worried. Not only was stepping up to lead stressful for me emotionally, but it was also going to be a lot of work. That year, a poor advisory teacher had made many members lose interest in the club, and by the time I was elected, there were fewer than ten people attending meetings, many of whom were seniors about to graduate. Recruitment of new members had to be my top priority.
Starting out my senior year and FBLA presidency, I quickly realized that the recruitment process was going to be even more work than I had thought. Some of the other officers on the team had other priorities, which often meant they weren’t willing to sacrifice time or resolve conflicting schedules to help the club or attend club events. This led to myself and one other officer shouldering the brunt of the work, with extra hours spent on my part creating advertising materials used when we presented to business classes, ran a club table during lunch and an evening open house, and hosted informational meetings. Thankfully, we were able to manage it all, and our club now has almost thirty registered members, with over twenty on average attending meetings.
My leadership style is not the same as the one who first inspired me, but I try to emulate her friendly, welcoming nature as much as I can, and hopefully I can impact the current members the way she impacted me. Thanks to FBLA, I no longer live in fear of group projects or asking teachers what I missed if I was absent for a day; I can stand in front of large groups and speak with minimal stress, even when things don’t go as planned—I once lost my voice in the middle of conducting a meeting! I hope to use my experiences in FBLA to help others in the club who may feel like I did when I first joined, and who knows? Maybe that quiet kid at meetings will be chapter president next year.