“We need essay prompts and applications for our youth that do not discount or discourage their roles as just participants, but highlight it. Instead of questions like, “How great are you when people are watching?” can we ask them “How great are you when people are NOT watching?” Now that is a question I’d like our teens to truthfully and honestly answer, and it would be a much better reflection of their character and potential than ‘How many leadership roles have you held?””
Not everyone on the Prom committee can be in charge of picking the band. Someone has to be on the clean up crew.
I read it yesterday and enjoyed it immensely–its the truth. sometimes the cog is just as important as the wheel…not everyone is a leader; being a participator should be valued skill as well.
My son asked the same question when he was filling out his national honor soc. application a few years ago. “Why isn’t enough that I’m a regular person with really high grades?” 
Of course, for the vast majority of schools in the world, it IS enough.
I really liked the section of the column that yauponredux linked, that said, " ‘You DID lead, didn’t you? How did you lead? Did you leading-ly lead the other leaders into leadership led leaders? Has leading taught you to be a better leader? Is leading your major? What will you lead in the future?’ because that is how silly it all started sounding."
Leadership is one of the least static of personal qualities, in my experience. A lot of people grow into leadership, as it becomes sensible for them to lead. I also think that there are genuine gender differentials in leadership opportunities among people of high school and college age, which decline significantly as experience grows.
Hear hear. I have a quiet kid who doesn’t want to be the center of attention and doesn’t want to lead. She want to listen, and have conversations, and collaborate. The emphasis on being a leader is massively overrated, IMO.
Who do you want in a small class discussion - the person who feels the need to dominate or the person who contributes to the good of the whole?
@Massmomm too funny, my D just asked the same question working on her National Honor Society essay last week!
I agree with the above. A college class (or any group ) which consists of all “leaders” (or people who think they are) sounds horrible to me.
In any situation you do need a few genuine leaders, but you also need the creative types, the deep thinkers, the worker bees, etc.
My son has never been a leader, in the sense of being President of this club, VP of that club. In HS, he had no true leadership roles, nor did he want any. Was he a leader in the classroom? Probably, Was he about to step up and organize a fund raising activity? I doubt it. I wouldn’t call him a follower either. He has a very high EQ which allows him to blend in many different situations. He really doesn’t want to be responsible for other people, nor does he want other people leading him. I am sure that there are many kids out there who are like him.
Clearly this is a thread that needs some leadership and I’m here to lead!! \m/
For most, leadership is something we grow into as we find our calling, be it a club, team, or work. It’s connected to social skills, which can take time to develop. I know I was a completely different person at 25, than I was at 16.
Clearly this is a thread that really looks for leaders, and I’m here to lead as well. I’m sure Gator and I and 10 other leaders will get a lot of work done.
This thread reminded me of a picture that could well sum up the college “leadership” situation:
http://i.imgur.com/P5zRZHN.jpg
Replace the ***** with i m g u r
I think the idea that “leadership” (in the sense of president of the school class, or of the French club) gets you into the college of your choice is an idea (not reality) that exists only in the minds of teenagers, and sometimes, their misinformed parents. It’s because it’s an easy “check box,” and successful high school kids are often really good at checking the “right” boxes. Of course no school wants a class full of check boxes.
If you are satisfied just to join and show up for a couple of EC activities, then you also ought to be satisfied just to enroll and show up at any old college that accepts you. If you’re content to be average, there really isn’t any reason to spend much time on a forum like this one. Hundreds of US colleges will gladly admit virtually any student who applies. So what is the problem here?
In some ways, identifying all the leaders is outdated. It is left over from the time when fewer people went to college and fewer jobs required college degrees. It seems a more relevant question today would be about problem solving ability. Lots of workplaces need problem solvers, but not all problems get solved only by a titled leader anymore. IMO unless HSs limit the number of leadership positions any one student can be elected to, those are more about popularity than leadership anyway. More true leadership ability is revealed in unelected positions where someone chooses a path and others follow, not because they have to, but because they see the value in the chosen path. Maybe the questions should be about “assuming leadership” rather than about being designated the leader.
“Hear hear. I have a quiet kid who doesn’t want to be the center of attention and doesn’t want to lead. She want to listen, and have conversations, and collaborate. The emphasis on being a leader is massively overrated, IMO.”
I think it depends on how one defines leadership. To me, being able to work well with others, to encourage others to engage in conversation, to encourage others to collaborate, to foster the involvement of others by making them feel included and welcomed is true leadership. It can be done in a quiet and inclusive way. It doesn’t have to be done -and I’d argue that preferably shouldn’t be done - in an “I’m in charge” kind of way. In my experience, the former is the best and most productive and effective leadership. Empower your less extroverted children to talk about leadership in this vein when asked about it.
@tk21769 I will call you out on that. Only leaders should be allowed to attend the best schools? Non-leaders should be content with mediocrity? Absolute tripe. Average people should only be allowed to attend average colleges by your reckoning. Please define average. In the words of another CC poster, whose username I wish I could recall, that’s a big pile of people to poop all over.
People often get tripped up by this “leadership” thing. Most parents and students view it as a checked box. It’s much more. Just saying being named president of some club is not sufficient. That doesn’t mean the child is a leader. It’s what the person does, not the title. Further, NOT having a box checked does not mean one is not a leader. There is quiet leadership and this doesn’t show up in checked boxes. This can show up in the letters of recommendation. I read LORs (I was on an admissions committee of a grad program) where the LOR writer would say something along those lines: “so-and-so is quiet in class but often s/he is the one who pulls students together in a group project…”
Another example. My daughter participated in judging a tournament for younger students. There were probably a dozen judges, a mix of parents, adult volunteers and students, including a “head judge” - a student named to that position. During the tournament, the judges convened to discuss which teams would receive awards. Nice, smart, enthusiastic people. Totally disorganized. It apparently drove my daughter crazy because she couldn’t make sense of the conversation, so she stopped, went up to the blackboard, wrote down the awards up top, wrote down the names of the teams along the side. Then, asked everyone to back up and evaluate each team one by one using the metrics on the judging sheets. One parent, who was also a judge, told me about this and said he was grateful for my daughter’s taking control of the discussion. A second adult said he was impressed that she did that (and also grateful). The parent of the “head judge” lamented that her son should have done it - yes, he should but he didn’t - to which she responded “but he wasn’t told!”. To be honest, I’d rather have my daughter be the quiet leader, with enough confidence in herself to stand up than be the “named leader” with the checked box.
Last, sometimes, the best leaders know when to sit back and allow others lead.
Like it or not, there seems to be a consensus among admission committees that “leadership” is a legitimate factor in admission to the nation’s most selective colleges. Presumably (but maybe not always) adcoms at the most selective colleges do take a broad view of leadership potential and how to demonstrate it. They accept conventional student leader types, but they also accept (I hope) gadflies and innovators. They accept “thought leaders” (lots of them, I hope). I suspect they do accept smart, capable people who quietly lead by example. However, “joiners” don’t necessarily make out too well in admission to the most selective schools. I don’t see any great injustice in that.
Except in Lake Wobegon, the average student is average. The average college is average. The average college student will attend (by definition) an average college.
Now, if the quality of the average college isn’t good enough for the average student, then the nation needs to do something about that. Meanwhile, there simply aren’t enough spots at the “top” ~50 colleges to admit students based on GPAs and test scores alone (unless we want to make the tests and grading standards much harder). Nearly every college application presents an opportunity to list activities and leadership roles. Absent well-defined leadership positions, the application process also provides opportunities to share how you’ve “made a difference” some other way.