During my senior year of high school, I was elected the captain of our varsity cheer squad. Going into the start of the school year, I felt pressure from my coach about what she expected of me and how I would lead the team. My leadership style differed from hers in that I was soft spoken, a people pleaser, and was used to making decisions in a group. The past two years, we had two to three captains that would lead the team and could bounce off ideas on each other and one girl was usually the one behind the plans while the other one told people the plans. Now I had to do all of this myself and had to make quick decisions with no input from anyone else. This was challenging for me because I did not want to be the person that had to rock the boat and tell people what to do, even though I knew what was best for the squad.

 

One football game in particular, I felt a conflict between doing what my coach was telling me to do and what was best for the team. When calling cheers, the captain usually tells the girls around her what cheer we are going to do before turning around to face the audience. This allows girls to remember the cheer before turning around to avoid making mistakes. My coach wanted me to just turn around and call cheers without telling the girls beforehand, so that we could be more efficient, but this only caused strife between me and my teammates because they would get frustrated that I did not tell them beforehand and then they would make a mistake in front of the crowd. I struggled with the feeling of needing to please people and be liked by not only my teammates, but my coach as well.

 

Through this experience, I learned that everyone has different leadership styles and just because someone’s leadership style differs than yours, that does not make it wrong. I also learned to not care so much what other people thought of me and to make decisions without trying to please everyone. This allowed me to grow in my independence and be confident in the decisions I made. Today, I am focused less on making decisions to please everyone and more on making decisions that I think are best and not relying on the input of others to make those decisions.