Leadership After the UY

After 4 (and a half, but who’s counting) years mentoring within UY cause-driven programs, it should come as no surprise that I continued down the youth outreach and mentoring path, bringing my experience to the Girl Scouts of MN & WI Valleys. Besides having the honor of working with an INCREDIBLE group of young middle- and high-school ladies, my new position within the Girl Scouts ConnectZ program also allows me to seek out and attend awesome college-and career-related events.

 

One of these such events just so happened to hit the “leadership” nail on the head. This past Friday I attended a Women in Careers leadership conference with 23 ambitious, thoughtful, 21st century-skilled high school girls. The main draw of this annual conference sponsored by the Girl Scouts of MN and WI River Valleys is a series of panels where girls get to interact with professional women from a variety of fields and at varying stages in their career. The panel I attended included women from the fields of social work, education, non-profit business management, and public activism. Although I am not debating which college I want to go to or which career path I should take, hearing from these strong female leaders helped remind me that leadership is a process of learning of growing. It’s ok if you haven’t read all the books on leadership, and you have to cut back on the number of extracurriculars (quality over quantity, right?) and it’s ok if you forget your “meaningful” and “life changing” lesson plan in the printer…I think you get the point.

 

So out of the many insightful nuggets of advice, here are my five favorite takeaways from the panel—agreed upon by each panelist, ages 22-54:

 

1. Leadership skills develop over time—you live and you learn, that’s how life works. If you aren’t trying new things and goofing up, you aren't learning.
2. The leader in a group is the person who will take on the extra work to make sure everything is completed. Leadership doesn’t just happen, it is intentional.
3. Involve yourself with people who mean well for you and will take interest in you. As one of the panelists said, “You always need at least one person in your corner.”
4. With that, this person can be someone older or younger than you, so don’t burn bridges and always be open to opportunities.
5. Lastly, but in my opinion the most important advice to carry with you everyday: Be aware that you ARE affecting those around you. Don’t be concerned about IF you are affecting others, but rather HOW. You affect others in even the smallest interactions and many times you will not know the affect you have had on someone. So be genuine. Be positive. Be that person others want in their corner.

 

Keep on keeping on!

Leah