Editing, Leadership and Team Building
When I entered my freshman year, a junior runner on my cross country team left a lasting impression, shaping my perception of effective leadership. He consistently looked out for me, ensuring I had transportation to our running meet-ups and generously shared insights during our long summer runs on how to maximize my high school journey. Stepping into the school on my first day, I felt a sense of belonging and support within the team and that support fostered a self confidence to try other high school experiences and push myself out of my comfort zone.
My experience with leadership shifted my perspective from thinking it was about individual upward movement to being about putting the team first. I've come to understand that leadership involves propelling the entire team forward in all aspects. Pushing a struggling teammate to move faster doesn't always yield results. Instead, offering support, checking-in, or setting a manageable pace fosters progress.
Through this leadership, I have formed more meaningful relationships, established trust within a team and have accomplished many team goals including a State podium finish, broadcasting and journalism awards and multiple league championships.
To prepare for our football broadcasts, I created a depth chart to share with my color commentator. This quick-reference chart cut air silence, creating smoother transitions.
My colleague and I kept a random word generator app at hand. When a game were to have a lopsided score, we challenged ourselves to weave in a generated word into our dialogue. This kept the game more interesting to our listeners, as well as for ourselves.
Prior to the start of classes, our KMC Paladin staff gathered to review page designs and participate in ice-breaker activities. This sped our staff ahead merging upper classmen and incoming freshmen in what is limited class time to build relationships.