NCYL, here I come

1. What are your strongest leadership skills and what are you doing to improve your weaker ones?
My teachers have always told me that I was a strong leader, and for a long time I thought it was because I was a perfectionist and such a strong student. However, as I have grown older, I have come to the realization that qualities other than scholarship are imperative to leadership. It is the ability to make friends, even with those that you would not normally befriend, that constitutes real leadership, because in all honesty, social intelligence is the most important skill one can develop.
Therefore, I think it is my ability to kill people with kindness and carry on a conversation with anyone I meet that makes me a good leader. I am not condescending and I do not try to rock the boat, and those are qualities that people appreciate and try to emulate. These are also abilities that have the ability to command the attention of a group; if people know that you genuinely care about them, they are more apt to follow your advice.
As far as my weaknesses, my greatest fault would be the fact that I get too wrapped up in the details of a project. Although it sounds cliché to say, I really do care too much about some of the projects that I become involved in. I try to work on detaching myself and delegating tasks in many scenarios, however, it is often hard for me.
2. How will you use your leadership skills to impact your future?
Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to become a journalist. I know that the ability to make people feel at ease and to center groups around one topic are the most important skills in journalism. Therefore, the fact that I can easily carry on a conversation and have social intelligence will make me successful in adapting to my surroundings.