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1. You don't have to have just one leadership style. In fact, being able to shift between leadership styles depending on different situations/teams is a valuable skill!

2. Learn what your strengths and weaknesses are as a leader. This way, you know which skills to focus on learning and which skills to focus on bringing to a group. You can't be the best in every skill, but it is important to be aware of skills you need to improve on!

3. Leadership can take on many forms. Being a team player is leadership, being a boss is leadership, and being an employee is leadership too. Leadership skills will always be valuable- you just have to learn how to use them.

During my time in the College Park Scholars' Public Leadership program, I was immersed in leadership methodologies, team-building strategies, and self-analysis. I think the skills I learned during my time in Public Leadership will give me a competitive edge in my job search because I know to leave my ego at the door and come into a job looking for how I can best adapt my skills to fit the situation.

Public relations is all about adapting to constantly changing conditions and problem-solving on the go. I would make an ideal candidate for a career in public relations because it requires each team member to look at a problem and see how it can be attacked from different perspectives. Thanks to PL, I feel confident in my ability to apply my leadership skills while also evaluating how others are viewing and solving the problem. Because I have learned so many leadership styles, I feel able to switch off between different "hats" or methods quickly and tactfully.

One of the things that PL stressed the most was evaluating yourself and your leadership style. This made me not only more confident, but also more open to constructive criticism. I am an ideal candidate for any public relations team due to my adaptive leadership style. As conditions are quickly changing, I am willing to listen to teammates as we navigate through a problem together.

Public leadership has given me the skills to hit the ground running in the public relations field, and I am eager to get started in this fast-paced and solution-orientated career.