I am a Born Leader

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Being a leader for in almost any given situation has been an innate quality that I have possessed for as long as I can remember. I have always found myself nominating myself for leadership positions. My most recent and fulfilling leadership position would be my eleventh and twelfth grade school years when I held the position of Drum Major for Purnell Swett High School’s Marching Rams. Being in this position meant that I had to give up the spotlight of performance, turn my back to the crowd, and lead my fellow band members on and off of the field of competition, high school football games, and community parades. Over the course of these two years, I have learned many defining qualities about myself and have learned how to incorporate these newly learned and innate qualities to my everyday life. Throughout this two year experience the quality that I feel tested more than others, was the quality of patience. Often times before I held this position, I found myself becoming extremely impatient with individuals and situations when they would not go the way as planned or as smoothly as I had planned for them to go. This position taught me that not all situations are going to run smoothly and that we need to make the best of what we are presented with. It also taught me that not all individuals learn at the same pace, the same way, and at times do not handle individuals close to their own age giving instructions on how to complete a task. With this realization, I found myself trying to find methods of teaching that appealed to all individuals as well as found ways of not coming off as trying to force individuals to complete the tasks the way that I see fit. I would describe my character as optimistic, understanding, tolerant, ambitiou... ... middle of paper ... ... to go to the upcoming competition, I decided that I would step in to be the voice of reason between the two groups. Although these two groups consisted of the majority of my friends and the conflict was about an issue that I obtained some knowledge about, I placed my friendships aside and refused to let my opinion sway me in the way that I felt would resolve the issue. I knew that letting this situation go on without turning it in would leave the band lacking, but I also knew that refusing to turn it in put me position in jeopardy. I made my decision based upon the band as a whole and that we would need our entire member to compete at the best of our abilities. My position as drum major did not really matter to me at the time of resolving the issue. It was then that I realized what my mother and father had been trying to instill in me for the last seventeen years.

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