| It is ironic that those of us with a role in leadership selection of young people look for the opposite of what perhaps many people on and off CC assume about "leadership." If you extend it to its logical counterpart, leadership qualities in the secular sphere are parallel to "sainthood" or "holiness" qualities in some religious spheres: that is, we look for sacrifice, selflessness, generosity, role-modeling, encouraging cooperation, letting go of ego for the sake of The Greater Good, answering "a call" when there's a leadership vacuum. Notice I didn't say we're looking for religiosity or morality per se, although an ethical component tends to come with the territory (these candidates being rather ethically formed, versus what may be not as standard or typical for the rest of their peers). But the analogy fits on some levels -- common threads being character, service, & internalized responsibility.
Otherwise known as, Real Male Leaders are not bullies or egotists, and Real Female Leaders do not try to ape stereotypes of male leadership.
Competitiveness is not synonymous with leadership, nor is it necessarily a component. Leaders tend to be *confident* people, but their effectiveness as leaders is directly related to their confidence in *others*, more than in themselves. Their success as leaders is very much contingent upon their optimism about people & their ability to coax that assumption into action.
Stereotypes can be dangerous when, like this, they result in opposite assumptions about a category.
It may be that students in certain regions are *wannabe* leaders, but that doesn't mean that they meet the litmus test inside a college admissions committee. |