My parents have strong work ethics, thus, they have always expected their children to work hard, too and excel in whatever they do. I have known since a young age that my parents have high expectations from me which may explain my competitive nature. I am always in competitive spirit whether it is academics, sports or co-curricular activities but I have also matured and grown as a person over time. There are certain experiences in my life which have played a major role in shaping me into the person I am today and one such experience is my involvement in my high school soccer team.

I enjoy playing various sports such as basketball and tennis but my favorite sport has always been soccer. Fortunately, I am also good at it and was one of the best soccer players in high school. My soccer skills were good enough for me to become captain of the school’s soccer team. But one of the misconceptions I had during my early days as a captain was that a captain is supposed to be the best player in the team which includes being the top goal scorers. As a result, I would rarely pass the ball to other forwards even if they may have better chances to score than me. In other words, I strived for personal glory. Even though I did perform well at a personal level, my team’s record was not impressive. But instead of carefully analyzing the whole situation, I started blaming my teammates for not being professional. Since I was the captain, others rarely told me about the mistakes I had been making and it would take me few months to finally realize I had failed my teammates and not the other way around.

I was fortunate to have a really great soccer coach who understood my competitive nature and also knew he had to guide me in a constructive manner. Thus, he advised me to closely observe other teams that were performing well. It didn’t take me long to realize that the top teams were doing well not because they have few star players but because the team members worked really well together. They had a certain chemistry which my team lagged. In some teams, captains were not even the best players in their respective teams but they did excel at inspiring everyone to work hard and to work together. It was clear to me I had misunderstood what it means to be a captain or a leader. And once I incorporated new lessons, my team’s performance suddenly rose and we became one of the top-ranked teams.

The first mistake I made was misunderstanding what it means to be a leader. A leader is not one who is the most capable at performing but someone who is the most capable at inspiring others to work together as a team. I also learnt players in successful teams do not strive for personal interests but for the interests of the team. Last but not least, a leader takes responsibility for failure but gives credit to everyone when the team succeeds. I might have been scoring more before but my team was not performing well. After I changed my approach as a captain, my goals did decline but the team’s performance improved by a significant margin. Another positive outcome of the experience was the realization that learning takes place everywhere, even in sports.

The lessons I learnt as a soccer captain will also be applicable in the real world, especially in my professional life. As I have studied leaders in different walks of life, I have almost always found the most effective leaders to be really good at inspiring their followers.