Sometimes, the most profound lessons in leadership come when you least expect them.
During my three years of training in my college ROTC unit, I tended to have a bit of a rebellious streak. I had some prior training from my time in the Army Reserves, and I was often resistant to conducting myself in a way that seemed designed to curry favor with my command. I wasn’t insubordinate—I simply believed that I was a leader in my own right and didn’t need to fit a specific mold.
My real growth as a leader came between my junior and senior years during a 5.5-week evaluation event known as Advanced Camp at Fort Riley. This training was designed to test our leadership abilities under a variety of challenging scenarios. We were thrown into intense situations requiring both individual performance and leadership in small and large groups.
To my surprise, I found myself making a series of crucial leadership mistakes. Yet, these mistakes became some of the greatest learning opportunities I’d ever encountered. I’d faced similar challenges in my college training, but being in an active environment and receiving direct feedback opened my eyes in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The feedback I received revealed blind spots in my leadership style and helped me identify areas I needed to work on.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned was that being a leader often means stepping into uncomfortable situations and accepting that mistakes are part of the journey. Many of us aim for perfection, afraid to make errors. But it’s those very mistakes that teach us the skills we need to grow into effective leaders.
For me, Advanced Camp was a transformative experience. Initially designed to assess what kind of leader I would be, it ended up teaching me what kind of leader I needed to become.
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