My understanding of self-leadership was not learnt in the classroom. Yes, my government and civic education teacher had in several occasions gone beyond class discussion to organize student-led leadership workshops, from which firstly, I understood the importance of proactivity. Occasionally, fellow students would all seemingly be unbothered to a certain task not because they are unsure of how to lead the peer-group as we were divided into peer-groups, but because they believed it was better someone else takes the lead. Why? I realized because many were scared of failing. Thoughts like “What if my idea turns out to be a flop”, or “How do I propose a solution pleasing to the entire team” and finally the most demotivating of them all “Franklin would take the lead instead, he’s super smart.” Now, this is invariably implying that leaders are born and not made or that one’s intelligence remains a gift received at birth and was never sharpened. All of these are untrue.
So far, beyond proactivity, respect is a value I also discovered is important in building healthy relationships with any community of persons. From the majority which stood by me side by side to also a good few who believed I should not be the one occupying the leadership positions due to multi-cultural interest clash including social class, I respected everyone. No one have
known this before now, that I engaged myself in athletics just to gain the hearts of this good few who were seemingly ready to stop at nothing in destabilizing my tenure. Though it was successful within few terms, the rest maintained their grounds that I wasn’t perfect neither was I good enough to lead but, on the long run, prior to graduation, the narrative changed. Now,
when I reflect, they changed because I respected their perspective about me. Yes, I am definitely not perfect and I never argued this neither did I discriminate. They respected the fact that I remained mature in character towards them though their negative attitude towards me.
That I yet still, respected them as everyone else.
While students from similar background such as I, chose to be reactive to these environments, I chose proactivity. I was already leading by doing this. As these few who were reactive at the beginning of their high-school journey began to understand that there was actually nothing wrong with who they identified as and that they matter too. Leadership begins with leading-self. Throughout my first term at high-school I was finding myself. No, I wasn’t
lost, I was seeking the best way to navigate, blend in and explore my new environment in the most respectful way possible. It was too much to say that I was already fully self-aware as a high-school fresher. The truth is “I wasn’t.” In the middle of term 2, I was elected my class president. Yes, I was actually voted in by members of my culturally diverse class. But, how did I manage to amass 61% of the total votes? None of this, came easy. In many occasions, I
was not only backlashed by oppositions but at some point, almost began to re-think the impact of the position I occupied to my mental well-being.
As I grew older, I began to concur with my icon, the late Nelson Mandela, that education is the most powerful tool with which I can change the world. I swore to myself that I would ensure I leave a positive mark in the lives of my people, bursting the doors open for others but this newfound goal unlocked the season of girt test in my life.