Leadership is something that anybody can participate in without having much experience. It does not have to solely be the kind of leadership that involves leading a nation or an institution. It can also involve volunteering, giving your time to a club that you enjoy, or merely demonstrating to others how one should live both in private and when you are around your fellow citizens. After all, as John Quincy Adams once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” If you are not sure if you want to be a leader on campus, here are seven reasons why being a leader on campus is important.
1.You get leadership experience that you can put on your resume.
Employers like applicants who have past experience that can be applied to the job. They also like individuals that have skills that can help them resolve almost any issue, which can be gained by spending time in various leadership roles. Plus, employers want applicants they believe have been proven to represent organizations well.
2.You make a lot of new friends.
You develop your connections with people you meet since you spend a lot of time working together. Eventually, if you go out of your way to become more familiar with those you work with, you end up bonding with them and having fun outside of your leadership role or maybe even in your leadership role.
3. You gain and develop leadership skills.
Through planning events, meeting as a team, and working together on goals, you learn new skills such as time management, creating reasonable goals and seeing them through, being flexible, and working with people on your team that have different perspectives. You also have opportunities to develop skills that you already have when working on a project or striving to resolve issues that may arise such as teammates feeling overwhelmed or disagreeing about how to accomplish a certain goal.
4. It provides you opportunities to network.
When you are involved as a leader of an honor society, a club, or with student government, you meet faculty, college administrators, alumni, and/or people who are already in your desired career field. By working with them or even spending time talking to them about what they do and the kind of advice they have, you increase the amount of people that can vouch for you if you need a reference for a job, a scholarship, membership in an honor society, or if you are applying to a college. After all, who you know and what they know about you matters so you have people that are willing to promote you so you can make the advancements you wish to make in life.
5. It can lead to other leadership roles.
Speaking from personal experience, I know this to be true since my time as a chapter officer for the Lambda Beta chapter of Phi Theta Kappa led to serving as the Alumni Representative of the New York Region, which led to my current job as a Transfer Student Mentor at SUNY Oneonta. It was also beneficial to serve in student government since it opened my eyes to how much is involved with providing students opportunities to become more active on campus, assist their community, network, and have fun with fellow students. If there is one take away from all of this that you should be able to gain, it is to start being active on campus as early as possible. You never know what benefits you will receive as a result.
6. You learn about your strengths and weaknesses.
When you spend time working as a leader on campus you, figure out your skills and what you need to improve. Perhaps you are skilled at time management and being organized but you are intimidated by public speaking or planning huge projects. Then again, maybe you are like me and feel confident about planning projects and public speaking but you struggle with time management and being organized. Regardless of what your strengths and weaknesses are, if you have the perseverance to continue and the drive to better yourself whenever possible, you can turn your weaknesses into strengths.
7.You make memories that will last a long time.
By serving as a leader on campus, you are able to do so many things that you never imagined you would do. Maybe you end up going to another country to learn about another culture and/or volunteer. Maybe you go to Disney World for the first time and decide that you want to continue to be involved with Phi Theta Kappa as long as you possibly can. Or maybe you play Cards Against Humanity with each other in a huge group and laugh hysterically. The bigger picture is that you bring fulfillment into your life by spending time with others who have the same goal as you: making the campus community a place of fellowship, growth, and development.
Ultimately, leadership is not the only way to have a fulfilling life. Spending time with friends, participating in creative activities such as writing, drawing, or creating music, and making the most of each moment are all equally capable of producing the same outcome. Nonetheless, being a leader on campus is important in order to get experience you might need for the jobs you want, network, gain new skills and enhance current skills, and to become more aware of the potential you have. That is because anybody can daydream about accomplishments. However, as Barbara Sher once said, “Doing is a quantum leap from imagining.”
