Senior Essay 12

In my school, I have been able to demonstrate leadership in my sports. During my four years, I have participated in softball and cross country. These two sports have created a great opportunity for me to step up and be a leader, especially as an upperclassman. During my senior year in cross country, I was able to step up in a very large way. Every day during practice, I was able to have the opportunity to encourage and build up my teammates. As a senior, you have a very important responsibility to help the team create a positive and enjoyable environment for everyone involved. I enjoyed this a lot because, as a freshman, the upperclassmen were not very welcoming, so having the chance to help them feel welcomed was very important to me. In my junior year, I also had the same chance because we had a lot of new people joining the team. Cross country is a difficult sport, and having someone who is there for you to be able to build your confidence and believe in you is very important. I truly enjoyed being able to help create a good season for my teammates, especially the ones who struggled to believe in themselves. While I was also able to do the same thing during softball, it was a little different. Throughout my four years in softball, I have gone from being the freshman who is so very shy, to becoming the senior who leads the team. Softball has been a sport that I see people struggling with getting into their own heads. Confidence is a very large part of this game, and the people you play with can largely affect this. Being able to help the underclassmen develop their confidence and faith in themselves has been very fulfilling. I have been able to help these students become a greater version of themselves just by believing in them and listening to them. Being a strong person who is always able to remain calm in times when the team might be struggling is a very important part of being a leader. I hope to be able to demonstrate leadership in the future by being able to always be someone that believes in those around them. While I am planning to become a nurse, I know how important leadership is in that field. With knowing this, I hope to be able to use what I have learned from past leadership opportunities to be able to apply them to nursing. You face lots of difficult situations in nursing, so being able to be someone who can remain calm and be able to work through those times with others is very important. I also see leadership as something that can be applied to people personally. If someone is going through something, being there for them as someone they can come to, to talk to, is very important. Everyone deserves to be heard, and to me, a good leader is someone who gives everyone a chance; that is what I strive to become.