Leadership/Service
Lifelong Learning
In my opinion, a person's response to rejection is a more accurate indicator of whether they have succeeded or failed in taking a risk; if you refuse to allow a “no” to destroy your confidence and sense of worth as an individual, you have achieved a priceless personal victory. The commitment to learning for a long time comes with the understanding that you will fail for a lifetime and always get up and keep trying.
My mom's frequent phrase is "The only time you stop learning is when you are dead." Growing up, I frequently allowed my perfectionist tendencies to dictate every aspect of my life and refused to place myself in any position where rejection or failure were possible outcomes. Unfortunately, this fear of failure carried over into my first few years in my undergraduate degree. Despite my interest in giving back to the Sun Devil community, I decided to hide within my comfort zone and avoid change when I was presented with wonderful opportunities. Looking back, I wish I hadn't given into my fears. I pretended to benevolently shield myself from disappointment; I was actually guaranteeing my own failure and sabotaging any hope of success.
As a student at Texas A&M University, I am committing myself again to a lifetime of learning through taking risks and embracing new opportunities. In light of this realization, I have pushed myself to take risks and grow in confidence during my time at Texas A&M and The Bush School by applying to numerous organizations, internships, and extremely competitive scholarship programs. In the summer, I was honored of interning with an E.U. Organization in Berlin, Germany through A&M's Public Policy Internship Program (PPIP). Berlin provided another opportunity to exit my comfort zone. I had zero knowledge of the German culture or language but simply a commitment to take risks and learn.
Sometimes I have been successful when stepping outside of my comfort zone and others did not go as well, but I still consider each of these experiences to be valuable since they have taught me that traditional definitions of success and failure don't always take into account opportunities for personal growth.
The key to being a great leader is to serve those you lead. I have observed the importance of service through my leadership opportunities at school, work and church, and my love for studying history. I have seen the most successful leaders serve by working with their people, lead the army into war, and concentrate on lifting up the weak to strengthen their group as a whole.
Ultimately, leaders get results. As the leader of a graduate research project, the work was not progressing. My team continued to lag despite efforts to motivate them. I worked tirelessly for our joint success. One week before our planned trip to Romania, we still had not received authorization from the International Review Board (IRB). Without authorization, the project would fail to gain the necessary data needed for a deliverable.
As the leader, I accepted full responsibility for my team and took on more responsibility to get results. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. The next three days, I spent eighteen hours restarting our 19-page application and finished it before the deadline. The result was approval as we were stepping on the plane.
All in all as a leader, I strive to delegate not only responsibility yet authority. The project continued with each member of the team leading key components of the project to get results themselves. Graduate school refined my leadership skills. I joined four organizations and served on executive cabinets. Each organization taught me important leadership characteristics. These roles enhanced my work ethic and ability to encourage others to work in unity. The main result of the research project was leading by example and ultimately making each member a better leader.
Leading requires patience because humans are imperfect. With that understanding, I know that everyone has the ability to improve, including myself, and I seek to help them discover those improvements while giving me feedback to improve as well.