Leadership plays an extremely vital role in each and every aspect of the life of any student. Students are required to go through several stages in their life for career development, where they would need good leadership qualities. Stephen Varanko III highlights that proper leadership skills are vital for accepting challenges, solving problems and analyzing career direction.
Mr. Varanko himself has held several leadership positions in his school life, which later helped him out to progress in the professional world. He was an active participant in the honor council and the student council of his school in junior year and became president of both organizations in 1999.
No person is born with all the important leadership skills. They have to work hard to gain and hone all the qualities needed to become a good student leader.
Stephen Varanko III points how that these skills would also serve a person after they graduate and step into the business world. Mr. Varanko had been involved in organizational leadership since high school.
He was even the team leader for both the Awareness Presentation Team and Habitat for Humanity group of his high school.
His experiences as a student make him a great candidate to shed some light on the important skills to develop to be a good student leader, as well as the steps to take to hone these qualities.
Here are the steps one can take to develop their leadership skills during their school years, as per Stephen Varanko III:
- Before trying to lead others, it is important that students try to lead themselves into the right direction. They need to work hard on their own selves, so as to set a good example for others. Working hard on one’s own self shall involve building self-discipline and character, developing organization skills, and taking steps to emerge as an effective leader.
- To become a good leader, a person would need to have impressive speaking and communication skills. All emerging student leaders must take time to develop and polish their speaking skills. Proper speaking skills would allow them to seamlessly communicate their vision with others, which is an indispensable aspect of becoming a good leader. Practicing how to get messages across to a group of people in an interesting and persuasive manner would be among the first steps of developing impressive speaking and communication skills. Student leaders must also work on maintaining adequate eye contact, whether they are giving a speech on the stage or talking with another person on a one-on-one basis.
- Developing SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) goals and taking all the steps needed to fulfill them is vital for student leaders. They must always be realistic in their approach while making any plan, in order to not reach any disappointing conclusion.
In addition to developing important skills, student leaders must also try to learn from their mistakes and do their best to not repeat them again.
