Are Our Campus Leaders Actually Leaders?

It doesn’t take much for someone in Student Affairs to call a student a “leader” on this campus. Anyone who has held an executive board position, been part of the SGA, or served as an RA or OL has probably been told that they’re a campus leader. Somebody recently suggested to me that there are very few actual student leaders at Stevens, and I’m starting to agree. I think it’s because leadership needs to be developed across different environments, and not everyone holding a position wants to work on themselves that way.

There are so many positions for this small campus, many times without fierce competition, and people end up holding positions because they’re interested in the organization and they can. Unfortunately, not all e-boards are made up of good people who are actively looking to improve themselves so they can improve their organizations – and that’s really fine, but I want Stevens to stop pretending like everyone is an amazing leader because they hold a position.

Leadership Connect focused a lot on how presidents can effectively communicate and empower their membership, facilitate a stronger bond within those micro-communities, and bring their whole, authentic selves to work. However, even with these long-term takeaways – much more valuable than the policy-focused RSO Summits of the past – people still weren’t fully present during the five hours. They showed up to avoid consequences like budget-freezing (as guest speaker Jon Tasch noted) and not to become the best versions of themselves (as Student Life’s Chris Shemanski focused on).

I think many of the younger members were excited to learn, but the older representatives didn’t want to participate and took pride in not paying attention. Formulas for compliments and organization theory can be great, but people aren’t as absorptive to this information once you’ve already convinced them that they’re doing a great job.

It’s this kind of complacency that really needs to go away. I think the best way to do that is to stop praising everyone in the room for being the best of the best just because they’re a president. Encourage humility and growth, because leadership requires a ton of self-reflection and practice being a good person, and there’s always room to grow. I’ve been on three different executive boards, a Stevens Summer counselor, an OL, and a TA, and I still have to work on myself so much before I would actually consider myself a leader on this campus.