Leading your way to success.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” John C. Maxwell.  I believe that in my lifetime, I could go under the definition as a leader with a couple of situations. When you are a leader you take up a huge responsibility as a person. Being a leader can fall under different types of categories. Simply if you stand up for what you believe in and take a higher route as a person, you can be defined as a leader. Have you ever heard the saying “always be the leader never be the follower”? My mom always would say that to me when I was growing up. Well I applied that to an incident in middle school. There were a group of girls who always made fun of this heavyset girl who I was a friend with. I went over to them and said a couple choices of words to say make them knock it off because she was my friend and no one should be treated that way. They really respected me for that and so did my friend. Just for sticking up for what you believe in, you could take on a role of being a leader.

Later when I was in high school, I believe that I was a leader in a different way. In high school I was the captain of the girls class S Portland Highlanders basketball team my senior year. To me, being named captain was a real honor and an accomplishment. You have to have certain qualities to actually qualify to be a good team leader and for my coach’s to name me captain I felt that I could take on the responsibilities. That year, my team made history! We had all the right chemistry to play together as a team and to go really far. We made it to the Shoreline Conference championship and lost by six. We also made it to Mohegan Sun Arena for the Class S State Championship and lost by two with thirty seconds left. From the past, my team was never a “team”. The older players were very mean and unfair to the younger players and made their lives a living hell. We never had the right team bond and respect until myself and my other captain brought everyone together as a team.

I believe that I was defined a leader to bring my team to come together and become a family even though, we are all different people. It is very important in a sport to have chemistry and to come as one in order to succeed. If you look back at our old records, you can see we were never a team until all the drama left and you had two good captains to lead the team to success. 

Mohegan Sun Championship