For a long time, I would have considered myself anything but a leader. I was a very quiet child, uncomfortable in my own skin and without many friends. My parents constantly moved our family around the country, preventing me from developing a strong peer network. The constant change also stayed the young confidence that I often viewed in classmates, cousins and neighbors. To add to the situation, I was gay without a single role model or confidant to turn towards and suffered from crippling anxiety. I was uncomfortable with myself. I hated being so timid and far removed from everyone around me. I wanted it all to change.  

This desire to be different, to be confident and open up to others was the drive behind many of my decisions to challenge myself in leadership positions. At first I chose behind the scenes or auxiliary roles, positions that did not interest more outgoing students but helped me develop key leadership skills. I decided to run for the treasurer position of my school’s student council because it did not require public speaking skills or a willingness to engage large numbers of people. I won and through two terms I not only worked on the major leadership traits of determination and integrity, which I knew I possessed, but also found myself being more sociable after working with others during board meetings. After doing a job well for two years I also had newfound self-confidence.

I was creating my own stability in my life and slowly accepting that I could depend upon myself to do a good job and bring rewards to myself. When I started high school no one would have picked these qualities out in me; however, working with other trait areas helped me uncover things I never thought I could do. This period helped me form the opinion that not all traits are fixed and that we are not destined to be one type of person our entire lives. I firmly believe that I will always be an analytical and determined person first and these are likely unmovable traits; however, I also believe that the traits we are not endowed with can be improved upon through work and become skills that we acquire. Using Northouse’s models as a reference, I would say that my life and personal beliefs reflect a hybrid of the trait and skills perspectives. Life is always going to be a fairly balanced between the forces of nature and nurture and I feel it would be wrong to completely discount one or the other.

I also feel that feeling removed from other children gave me the emotional and mental space to develop a strong sense of emotional intelligence. Dealing with anxiety and my non-normative sexual orientation as an adolescent was my moment of otherness or “second birth” as the Jesuits would call it. I firmly believe that in order to be a great leader men and women must have one of these moments where they feel they are on the outside of their peers or community. These opportunities, although potentially painful, give us perspective on where we fit in the world. In the Jesuit tradition, we should constantly be self-reflecting, trying to find out how and why we react to these situations in the manner we do. We should be asking ourselves how can we grow out of feeling hurt and how to balance our own emotions with the external reality of the situation. Through practicing reflection during and after these moments of otherness we grow and can relate to other marginalized peoples better and work towards more just communities.

Even at the end of high school, with my newfound leadership skills and the emotional intelligence I had developed, I would never have imagined myself in a position such as the one I currently occupy. Orientation Leaders are ideally so outgoing and so extraverted. My freshmen and sophomore years I continued reflecting though, and I did a lot of emotional work and kept pushing myself. I was open about my sexuality with everyone I knew and looked to my friends to support me when I needed help dealing with my anxiety. I took another treasurer position, but this time with the expectation that I would develop new skills. This post was also with Loyola’s LGBTQ group Advocate so it required me to be a lot more open about personal details of my life. I had to be out and confident because of this position, but over time I recognized that I had to be out in order to be fully confident and bring myself one-hundred percent to what I was doing. At the end of this last year I decided to run for vice-president of Advocate and I have never been more excited about an extra-curricular opportunity. The interactions and people skills that I once dreaded I am now anticipating with fervor.

The confidence building that I did with Advocate is a large part of the reason I was able to apply to the OTL position. I had previously uncovered many of my leadership traits and built a lot more of the necessary skills, but being accepting of who I was fully and finding work that reflected and reaffirmed my identity is what gave me the confidence to push myself even further. During training for Discover Loyola I feel that I have continued to build confidence and sharpen those skills. Leading incoming freshmen with whom I have no previous connections no longer scares me. The training sessions have also reminded me that self-development cannot take place only in my head. It requires other people to interact, share, work with and trust to be as meaningful as possible. In my fellow Orientation Leaders I have found a group of competent, open and kind people with whom I look forward to working with everyday. This has reaffirmed my belief that leadership is not only traits, skills and confidence but also depends a sense of community. The leader does not exist in a vacuum but only matters when he or she responds well to his or her surroundings and peers. That reality and the connection to dialogue and communication is what I have taken most out of training and I am glad that my previous experiences have allowed me the opportunity to realize it.