o chius!

The tough thing about being in a leadership role is that you're held to a higher standard than everyone else. Once you tell people that certain behaviors or actions aren't acceptable, you have to make sure that you're following through with that in your own life. Even harder than that, once you realize that certain things that you've been condoning or even participating in are unacceptable, you then have the burdensome responsibility of telling people that you can't allow them to continue doing what you had just been encouraging them to do yesterday.

Leadership isn't a total downer, though. Its upsides most certainly outweigh its few downsides. For one, leaders are required to live with integrity. You're forced to give careful thought to every move you make, because your life is held as an example of how others ought to live. I'm a youth leader with my church's high school ministry, and the two years that I've been ministering there have caused more positive personal changes than any other time of my life, because how I live my life is a major factor in the spiritual and moral development of my students.

If anyone needs a boost in the integrity department (and I think everyone does), it'd be a good idea to find some kind of leadership role to take. But make sure you take on a leadership role that is appropriate for your own social and spiritual maturity level! I've seen so-called "leaders" whose integrity and maturity are so lacking that they actually do more harm to their students than good. If you can't handle what life throws at you, if you're going to whine and complain and moan about every setback that comes your way, if you don't actually have a grasp on the stuff you're supposed to be teaching, then you have absolutely no business being in any kind of leadership role until you can at least start getting your act together. Like Jesus once said, if the example you're setting causes anyone to fall, it'd be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a boulder tied around your neck than to continue leading.