The Importance of Leadership

            Imagine a football team on which every player who shows up is a wide receiver, and no one tells them  otherwise.  They make it to the first snap and what happens: people running in circles, no one blocking, nobody even actually snapped because everyone on team was so concentrated on the route he/she was about to run.  MADNESS! And a pretty lousy football team.  The team won’t perform very well, no one will have a

good time, and no one will want to play again.

Enter the leader.  This time our cadre of wide receivers and a quarterback/leader shows up, this time the quarterback has a plan for success, he understands the whole game and how it should be implemented.  The quarterback assigns some people to play the line, some to play defense, the quarterback assigns the routes according to his experience to get better results than just letting the receivers run free.  The team will fare much better, they still may not be the best team in the world (receivers are notoriously bad tacklers) but at least they accomplished something, one person caught a pass, the players were contributed toward their goals, and the whole team had a better time, and may even want to play again.  The big difference: a leader. 

Volunteering, just like football requires leadership.  In many cases volunteer opportunities require a number of tasks to be completed by a group of strangers with little or no specific training.  It requires a good leader to make sure all the right people are moving in the right directions to insure a successful outcome.  A good leader can add a great deal to a volunteer opportunity, many volunteers are out of their comfort zone and just need someone to guide them, some just don’t know where they should go.  Volunteer leaders make all the difference in creating a fun, rewarding, and successful volunteer opportunity people will want to come back to.

If you would like to know more about how you can become a volunteer leader and how you can take an active role in making volunteerism in central Ohio better and more enjoyable. Please sign up for a volunteer leader training session, coming up on February 15^th by visiting www.handsoncentralohio.volunteerhub.com on the project calendar or contact Kate Potter at kpotter@handsoncentralohio.org or (614) 221-6766 ext. 169.