Leaders should walk higher road

This archived article was written by: Kalli Prendergast

When a student is elected to a leadership position, They put themselves into a higher status. They must maintain that status, whether on campus or social status. A social status can be referred to as “respect”. You can gain or lose respect easily. How to lose respect is being hypocritical. Say you do one thing and not do anything. Guarantee people something and not follow through. You are to be a leader that gains respect not consistently lose it.
Growing onto my statement of “social status,” social media can be a huge factor, to your status. There isn’t a fine line of what you should or should not post but the line is there. Student leadership officials portray a message to their “ followers”. The message can be sent to them from what you post on a day-to-day basis, a tweet or a Facebook status, to a post you add for 24 hours, Snapchat. Each medium is all the same. Once posted, it IS posted. Many think that “Snapchat” is “no big deal” because it is only posted for 24 hours, but people truly do see it. Snapchat reflects your everyday life so when I’m seeing leaders from my school getting drunk or getting high, that reflects so much on their character.
I can relate this to a waterfall effect. It takes one person at a high rank to be hypocritical, not follow rules, disobey regulations to send the okay down the “waterfall”. With the waterfall representing the other leaders/students. When that “okay” is sent it spreads like no other. All of a sudden, Eastern has people in leadership positions setting bad examples. You have high ranking leaders posting about their intoxication with three underage students on Snapchat.
As for my statement with having a campus status, it is a portrayal to your student body/faculty. You are elected to be an example to your peers/ school & community. When you walk on campus, you set the bar, you set the example. For example, showing up to events intoxicated. You set the standard of that action being okay. We can. Continue to portray that these actions will be okay nor are they okay. We need leaders people respect, trust and portray how a leader should act, not how it is headed.