NicoleFinke.com

In college, we’re all surrounded by the idea of “building your resume.” What puzzles me about this is the emphasis on getting leadership positions. Many students think that as long as they were an officer in a group, they’re set with “leadership experience.” I’m not saying leadership positions aren’t a good thing, but they can’t be the goal. The goal is what you actually do with an organization; that’s real leadership. There are two goals I have to help me focus in on what’s important in being part of an organization:

1) Evolve. What matters is how you contribute to an organization. This means upholding and extending the group’s vision and seeing where improvements can be made. It’s not about what’s expected from you, it’s what you do beyond that. Give the organization a point! Something to rally around and be proud of.

2) Evolve others. Enabling group members reflects upon your leadership; taking all the credit might help some “status” in theory, but in reality it undermines the group. The best leaders are those who nurture new leaders; don’t be afraid to let others take ownership in the vision or to help them succeed. Some officers have an idea engrained that others succeeding make them somehow less successful. This is opposite of the point; an organization is better off as there is more success among the members.

The bottom line is that evolution is key to finding and keeping a “point” to everything that an organization does, and caring more about that evolution than personal credit. Stop wasting time in meetings wondering “What’s the point?” Either find the point or evolve the organization to create it. This gives real value to your resume; the real world doesn’t care how many hours of meetings you sat through or what you took credit for, what matters is why you were there and what difference you made.