“Daring leadership is ultimately about serving other people not ourselves”. This quote by Brené Brown was something that stuck with me during my year 9 camp. I believe that camp really helped to showcase my ability to lead, and this quote was what pushed me to succeed. The camp took place in Kalbarri and each night we were camping in our own tents that we had to set up and take down every time. It was constantly raining, and the journey was both physically and emotionally demanding and was a very difficult challenge.

We were given many opportunities to demonstrate both leadership and teamwork in our activities such as the bushwalks, food packing and cooking. The first day at base camp we needed to pack all our food for the next week which was a very time consuming and complicated process. The food had to be found from different sections, sorted into specific meals, and packed into various boxes and crates. To further complicate the process our teacher and camp leader left us to our own devices. Being day one, everyone was feeling very uncomfortable to say anything. Our camp groups were made up of people we didn’t normally interact with, and no one wanted to be the first to step up and lead.

Deciding to take initiative I volunteered to lead. I looked at the information we were given and designated roles. As people brought the food in, I sorted them into the boxes based on our different meals. I led by example and was out there serving others by not just giving orders but by being a part of the team and contributing to the work. While there were many other situations in which I was either demonstrating teamwork or leadership this one really stood out as it needed a lot of courage to step forward and without that organization, we would have joined the many other groups who had forgotten food or hadn’t packed enough.