Examples of leadership activities
Leadership activities
Your leadership activity must have been undertaken whilst a student at the University of Exeter. Any role (voluntary or paid) where you are clearly demonstrating leadership skills may contribute to your Exeter Leaders Award. Please bear in mind when choosing your leadership position that you will have to draw on this experience to prove - in detail - how you've developed as a leader in this role.
Some examples of leadership activities that students have used in the past include:
- Taking a committee role in a Guild Society, SU Society or AU club
- SSLC Chair or Secretary (for Streatham students email education@guild.ex.ac.uk and for Penryn students email studentvoice@thesu.org.uk for more info)
- Exeter Student Volunteers officer, secretary or project manager
- RAG Officers & Core Committee members
- X-Media - editorial/supervisory roles
- Senior Student Ambassador
- Peer Support Programme Organiser
- Evidence of leadership in the workplace
- Leading a Students as Change Agents project
- Mentor on the Maths Circles Programme at Exeter Maths School
Your leadership activity should not be related to your degree programme, for example, your leadership activity cannot be a project you have led as part of your module.
Demonstrating leadership in your application form
The leadership position you choose should be a formal position you have been elected or appointed to, putting you in charge of people over a period of time. It must allow you to reflect on and clearly demonstrate how you have shown leadership skills for your application to be approved.
Note that as this is a reflective exercise, you cannot choose an activity that you have not yet undertaken.
You may use more than one activity for your leadership role, but both must be of sufficient length/depth of experience to enable you to critically evaluate your performance.
To ensure you have enough detail, you could describe:
- Responsibilities undertaken. For example, if you were responsible for managing a budget, how much was this? What financial decisions did you take?
- Any people you were in charge of, their roles, and how you were able to motivate and inspire them.
- Any difficult decisions you had to make or problems you faced, what you did to resolve these and what the outcome was
- The overall impact you had - what difference did you make? What changed as a result of you being in that role?
Hopefully the above will give a good idea of what we are looking for in this section of The Leaders Award. Please do not email The Exeter Award office asking if your activity is acceptable as you will recieve feedback on the leadership activity you have chosen once you have submitted the application form.