What does it mean to be in the role of a leader? Before we tackle this question, we must understand that there is more than one kind of good leader; it depends on context, and the person itself. Let’s forget about being a leader in a political sense, or a religious sense, or a cultural sense, even in a university sense. What does it mean to be a leader in a student sense? One possible interpretation: student leader would decrease the negative things that may divide a student group, while encouraging the positive things that increases student brotherhood or engagement.
A positive thing that a leader must recognize and encourage is the purpose. Let’s say you chair a club of origami in UBC. What is the purpose of the club? If you answer origami, you are not entirely correct – it is the students’ passion for origami. That is why they signed up for your club, paid the fee, and is sitting in your first icebreaker, asking you for leadership. The purpose is to not just make origami – it is to meet people who love origami, to enjoy the making of origami with others who love origami, to talk about origami with people who love origami, and most importantly, to continually stay in touch with origami lovers in order to (in the near future) meet more people who love origami, to keep making and talking about origami, and perhaps even lead the actual origami club itself. And to recognize that purpose, the leader should (after attracting initial members through early September promotion) engage the members by continually setting up opportunities to practice their passion, to set up meeting times for origami, send tailored messages to existing members to attend (and invite new friends), and make it easy and pleasant to practice origami to such an extent that – hopefully, maybe – it convinces some of them to lead the origami club next year. Recognizing purpose is one of many positive things that a leader can do to increase engagement, and produce all its wonderful consequences.
One of the biggest negative things that a leader must be aware of is student disconnection, where the student(s) ask themselves “why should I participate in something that, while I may want to care about, I don’t know how to participate in a way that makes me feel I am part of a larger, inclusive group where everyone is connected?” This disconnection can affect students, anywhere from running for an exec position in a club, to attending a social gathering with mostly people you don’t know. To decrease this sentiment, the leader must not expect the student to reach him; instead, the leader must reach the student(s). The leader must be actively inclusive. This must mean more than a “I welcome your comments and opinions” and should go for a “James, I need to know your opinion on this. Tell me, man!” The leader must recognize, and try to combat against negative things that occupy a student. Disconnection is a more serious threat to student participation and engagement than hostility or disagreements – the issue is less of “bad interaction” and more of “no interaction.” In UBC at least, you may get the sense that a few, prominent people do all the debating, disagreeing, and promoting, but they are not the point. The point is the masses. They look at the booths, the posters, and the pretty websites. They think “I have no idea how this will work out, but maybe I will try,” they attend or join, only to realize that it is like finding and keeping a job: one must continually force oneself to attend the fundraisers, or the volunteering, or the gatherings that the prominent representatives may tell him about, but do not pull his passion; the difference is, he doesn’t get paid. These students are among the thousands who wish to be part of UBC in much deeper and satisfying ways than they may be at the moment.
So, what does it mean to be a student leader? I will tell you, but first, you must promise to go to the nearest washroom, clean your face up, and check out the mirror.
– John Park, Go Global
