teamwork>leadership by Sophie

teamwork>leadership by Sophie - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

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

We need that kid that messages everyone for group projects, that assigns the work, that will spam you until you answer. The philosopher Hobbes would argue that his function as leader is justified because we need to have someone in charge.

Leaders are nice. But ultimately, if we all played our part, that kids role as the "leader' would not be needed. We would not need leaders if individuals cooperated.

Leadership skills are charming: the mighty power of management is vital to corporations. Being a "leader" is synonym of being the Indiana Jones of your team, and the "follower" the random extra that gets eaten alive by paperwork within 3 minutes. We all want to be Indian Jones in college. But what about being the Ghost Busters?

A leader can get the little duckies in line to follow him, a team player can get everyone to bring the best of the abilities of each other, listen, and work together.

Being a team player is more important than leadership. Being a team player is someone that will get dirt on their hand. A leader will gaze at progress from afar delivering the occasionally motivational speech. It is like in the army: the highly ranked do strategies, while the most lowly ranked to the actual fighting. Leadership is an admirable skill- but understand the deeper meaning of cooperation is a stronger tool. In college, being a leader shows responsibility. But the power to be a team player is the chainsaw, the leader is the screwdriver. Indeed, being a team player implies having the power to lose authority and listen to others.

There is more to gain: communicating means learning more then you can possibly know alone. College should be about cerebral expansion, not close minded authority. Being able to be a team player is a much more long term valuable skill set- to be a boss one understand being bossed around.

So why are leaders important? They exist to compensate for because we are not all willing to be team player. If we all invested, cooperated, and listened to each other, we would not need a superior.

Having leadership skills are not necessary for college. Being a team play is.

But if can be both, by all means do so.