Fall 2022 Leadership Excellence Scholarship Winner

Blake Demler

Blake Demler is in his fourth year of studies at the University of Houston. An engineering major, Blake is also active in his fraternity, currently serving as his chapter’s vice-president. Blake’s essay demonstrates his perspective on leadership and the insightful understanding he has of his own strengths and weaknesses. We are honored to support student leaders such as Blake each semester.

Read Blake’s Essay:

The best qualities a leader should have are a visionary outlook and efficient communication. A leader who has a visionary outlook is important because they need to visualize the larger picture of the group’s mission or purpose. They need to set goals and milestones that guide the group towards the final objective. The leader should also obtain efficient communication skills. Communication is very important because the leader will need to explain their visions and goals to the group’s members who may not agree or understand the reasoning behind the leader’s thoughts. This will allow the leader to properly explain their visionary outlook so that the group may start progressing towards the final objective.

Self-awareness and the ability to delegate are traits that allowed me to be a better leader. Self-awareness allows me to know my strengths and weaknesses so that I can rely on others to help me strengthen my weaknesses or to fill that role of which I’m not suited for. An example of my self-awareness is that I know I can be harsh and hold others to a higher standard than what they may be capable of. When it came to dealing with said people I would often get frustrated and annoyed while attempting to work with them, so I had someone who was more relaxed and forgiving step in and work with the troubled member as I noticed my leadership style did not mix well with the member. The other leader was able to effectively work with the troubled member to complete the task. The ability to delegate is a strong suit of mine and I believe it has helped me with being the Vice-President of my fraternity chapter. The vice-president’s role of overlooking all positions also came with the need to delegate tasks and duties throughout the members of the chapter. I’ve been very effective at delegating by choosing members in which I believe best suits the needs of the task at hand. I would also help guide position holders on their delegation of tasks to their committee members when they would struggle. Both self-awareness and the ability to delegate have allowed me to start leading the chapter in the direction of being a highly rated chapter throughout the nation.