When you are growing up, everyone always talks about how you want to be a leader, not a follower. No one wants to be the person taking orders when they could be giving them, no matter what the situation might be.This was always such a hard concept for me to understand.

Growing up, I was rather shy and liked to stay behind the scenes. I was okay with being a follower because that was what I was good at. I liked the doing the small details and making sure everything was running smoothly, all from the safety of a curtain shielding me from the public eye. I felt weird and alone while doing this, because all my other friends were pushing to be the ones in charge, yet I wanted nothing to do with it.

As I got older, I became more okay with wanting to be behind the scenes. I quickly realized that there are two types of people in the world- those that want to be front and center, and those that do not. I was okay with being the latter. My friends would never bat an eye when I chose to do the tedious details they did not want to do, whether it be making arrangements to get caterers for events or to go and get supplies needed for different activities because they knew that those jobs needed done, and it was something that I could accomplish well and on time.

Overall, my message here isn’t that you should not try for different leadership positions, but that you should never feel uncomfortable with doing the work behind the scenes. FFA has a position for everyone, and in the words of Miranda Lambert, it takes all kinds of kinds.