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Garrett Jones

Cara Gross

English 150

19/01/2023

Learning Narrative

My biggest challenge to overcome was strengthening my leadership skills. I was able to

overcome this challenge through a year of trial and error. I am now the most capable leader I

have been yet.

The challenge began my junior year in high school but didn’t come into full effect until

my senior year. In the past, my only significant leadership role was as Communications Director

for Iowa Climate Strike, but in my junior year, I was elected our junior class president and was

selected to become a Drum Major in our school’s marching band. In my senior year, I was still in

both of the previous positions, but I also took on the role of our school’s DECA chapter as

chapter president.

First, when I was junior class president, I was in charge of helping plan our school’s prom

as well as delegating tasks to other class officers. As an officer team, we worked together to

compile a list of potential venues for prom as well as how to raise money, because our prom was

entirely self-funded. We also worked as a team to think of ways to create more profit rather than

raise our ticket prices from $25. This role was very important to me as it was my first look into

how leadership functions and I believe that since it was a small group setting - only about 12

people - it allowed me to be more outgoing and confident in my actions.

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Second, as one of our three marching band’s drum majors, I was tasked with directing

over 100 members at once. This ranged anywhere from conducting the band, leading rehearsals,

and making sure everything ran smoothly at competitions. I had the amazing opportunity to meet

with many other drum majors from all across the state. The drum majors paired with the

knowledge of my band director allowed me to learn many new leadership strategies. One of the

most effective things I learned was to be stern enough to get results but to be kind enough to still

make it enjoyable for everyone involved.

Finally, I was able to use all of the leadership strategies in other positions, most notably

in my time as DECA chapter president. I was able to take all that I learned and apply them to our

chapter, making it the most successful it has ever been since being created. In previous years, our

group only consisted of 13 members, but I was able to grow our chapter to over 50 members. In

addition, we sent 12 members to international competition whereas, in the past, we were only

able to send about five.

In conclusion, all of these positions helped me improve my leadership skills, which in

turn bettered other parts of my life as well. I am very grateful that I was able to have these

experiences because they continued to be relevant as I took on the responsibility of becoming a

speech and theater coach and in my work experience. I think these experiences have also made

me a more understanding and patient person.