Leadership Self Reflection

The leadership role I found the most challenging was being the chair of the silent auction for Relay for Life in my grade 11 year. The silent auction chair essentially leads the silent auction committee, which approaches businesses for donations that can be bid on and organizes the actual auction the day of. While I had been involved with the silent auction for two years, I had always worked under the leadership of Paige, a seven year veteran of the event who was always there to guide and assist me if there ever was a problem. Now on my own, I realized early that there were a lot of behind the scenes tasks that I never knew of. I had to be more organized with documenting the businesses we had talked to, the items we had received and the estimated

value of the items. I also had to know what everyone else in my committee was doing, and encourage them to keep on top of their responsibilities. Being in charge was unlike anything I had done before, which caused a significant amount of stress, but I had committed to the job and I knew I could do it if I continued to persevere.

For three months I headed the committee, made presentations to promote the auction, and collected donations and while tasks were completed, the leadership role was not without difficulties, both emotionally and logistically. The group I lead was made up largely of my friends. It was enjoyable to spend time with the people I like, but it made it more difficult to express my frustration when I felt that they weren’t doing their share of the work. One struggle I had was pushing my friends to do the tasks that they had signed up for and, admittedly, I failed to lead in a constructive way in this domain. I lost my temper when I found out that certain things I was told were done were actually not and that I would have to rush to get them finished. I felt awful about the way I handled the situation, but it is from that mistake that I learned that a good leader needs to be understanding with their group and flexible with the tasks they must do. I also learned that you cannot control the actions of others, but getting angry with them will not push them to do what you want them

to. Logistics-wise, I faced problems with organization. The day of the auction, I realized that we were not as prepared as we had been in previous years. A few of the items donated were misplaced while packing and moving them. Thankfully, the majority were found, but two were not located in time for the event. I felt like I had failed myself and believed that the rest of the committee and the generous donors would be furious with me. I was completely disheartened, but luckily I was surrounded by people who helped me focus on the positive- they convinced me to think about the more than 50 other items, rather than the missing two. Both of the items were later found, and will be used for next year’s auction. I consider this mistake my biggest error as chair of the silent auction, but from it I did learn two valuable lessons: organization is key-the more prepared you are the more successful you are- but also that everyone makes mistakes and that something isn’t a failure if you don’t do everything perfectly right. When setting a goal for the group, I was convinced that we would not raise anywhere close to the money we had in the record breaking year before, but I figured that we would still make a significant amount. We decided to aim for $2000. When the money was counted we learned that we had surpassed our goal, amidst the difficulties, and raised over $2800. Though I consider my leadership role as chair of the silent auction the most challenging, it is the role that taught me the most about how to be a better leader.