Logan Smith

I think this article resonated with me this week. It was weird to read about leadership, especially concerning a TED talk. Honestly because I would rather just hear and watch the actual TED talk, not read about it. But regardless, it was a difference experience to read about all of the TED talks rather than watch them. Still good, but just different. However, the gist of all of these talks was to piece together different ideas from different talks, and it was hard to understand at first. I guess partly that was because I tried to skim over it, and that did NOT work. The first point made concerned leadership based on entitlement. That’s hard stuff for a lot of people to grasp, even me! For example, in high school I was the Editor-in-Chief of the school paper and held various officer positions in different clubs and student organizations, all while playing tennis and maintaining one of the top few spots on the team. Simply by doing all of those things, I was a ‘leader.’ However, when I got to college and realized that literally every other person at Clemson did all of those things too, it was a wake-up call that coming to college and having the background I did wouldn’t entitle me to any specific positions. Honestly, I got a call this week saying I didn’t get placed with a leadership position in an on-campus ministry I’m really involved with. And it was really hard to swallow that, because I wasn’t used to being told no! And that’s the root of the problem I think that article is trying to hit. Secondly, the article deals with failure! Which is a such a contrast to the first point, but still builds on it in the most beautiful way. When you recognize that you are, by no means, entitled to being a leader, you start to take your successes and failures with a grain of salt and the successes are even sweeter because you recognize that you’re capable and deserving of upholding such a position. And failures? Those can’t hold you back! Because as a leader you’re called to serve, and that service can make you feel like you’re inadequate or undeserving but that’s not the case – at all!