Yeah Yeah Lead!

When I thought about my leadership lens, I first began to think what makes a good leader:

I think that a leader whose purpose is to pursue their own personal agenda will end up like a party host without any guests. The purpose of a leader is not to impose their own ideas, but instead to lead to the group’s goals. That is why I believe that the first step that every leader should take is to open their eyes and ears and become aware to their companions. To get ahead, they need to get behind their group. But, once the group figures out what they want to do it’s up to the leader to lead the charge. When it comes to action a leader should be ahead of the group. Everyone knows the basic traits of a leader: decisiveness, resourcefulness, and creativity just to name a few.  I never knew what those meant until I had to experience the need for them myself, though.

The most influential experience I’ve had was in the past two years, as the leader of the dance team Genesis. Leading the team was the first time that I was really at the top of the leadership food chain; there was no advisor and no past leaders to tell me what to do. It’s pretty apparent that the reason I’m all about the leader being a part of the group has come from this, because a dance team would get booed off of the stage if it were a one-man show. The first moment that I realized that I was evolving as a leader was in the first few weeks, when I was teaching the group my choreography. I had never taught in such an intensive way before and it made me realize that patience and an open mind would take me miles. At first I would be so offended at the thought of changing a dance step, but I soon learned that by alienating the team I would alienate any chance I had of winning. Soon enough I had become best friends with everyone on the team and every performance and competition was a win to us.

Hopefully I will continue to grow as a leader. Though I talked about what I currently think makes a great leader, I believe that there is no specific formula for the perfect leader. It's one of those things that depends on the situation. Even so, I plan on getting as close as I can to being the best leader I can be.