Prior to entering college his fall, I had fancied myself a leader, of sorts. I never held any huge titles of leadership, but I felt confidence in myself and my surroundings to the point that I unofficially took on the role of leadership in many settings. As a member of The Hockaday School swim team, I found myself placed in a role of leadership by my peers because of my abilities in the pool. I took this role on with pride, knowing that it was an honor to be looked up to by my teammates. In swim meets and practices, I always tried to make myself available to answer questions, help with stroke technique, or just be on the sidelines cheering my team onto victory. 
(Me with part of my high school team after helping lead us onto a 1st place relay finish at the state meet. By the way, recognize anybody in on the far right? 6 degrees of separation, people. It's real.)
As soon as I left home, however, and joined the UT women’s swim team, all of that changed. Suddenly I was not the fastest swimmer in the pool. Not only was I the best in the pool, but I found myself unable to participate in activities like weight lifting and dryland training with the rest of my team. I am young, injured, inexperienced in the ways of college athletics, and completely out of my element. The confidence I had maintained throughout high school was replaced with a sense of inadequacy and any semblance of leadership I carried with me to school was left outside the locker room, along with the rest of my self-esteem.
(My new team, with their goal of 'turning the tower orange' has proved to be a somewhat intimidating environment to enter into. image courtesy of:http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3537/3952989980_48b60726d0.jpg)
Thusly, I found that I could thoroughly relate to Alice’s struggles of falling into a completely new world when reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Though we do not know much of her life before she falls down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, we do see a snippet of her self-confidence prior to entering her new world in her statement, “and what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?” (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 11). She is assured enough in her intelligence to ask probing questions such as this one. However, as soon as she enters the world of Wonderland her confidence is shattered piece by piece by the creatures who tease and argue with her.
What Alice quickly discovered, though, is one very important key to surviving in almost any situation: she learned how to adapt. Early into her journey in her new world Carroll says of Alice, “[she] had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.” (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 19). With this skill, Alice is definitely on the right track to become a leader. As we learned from Robert Brickley, “the world’s body of knowledge doubles every five years.” (Course Anthology, 173F). I think in Wonderland, Alice experiences a form of this – though the “body of knowledge” in Wonderland is certainly skewed at best – and is able to adapt accordingly by choosing to learn from those around her rather than cling to her beliefs no matter what. For example, were she to speak with the caterpillar in Wonderland prior to falling into this new world, she might not have put up with his condescension long enough to listen to or take his advice. Yet, she decides to listen his instructions to eat different sides of the mushroom as “one side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter,” (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 53.) and is able to manipulate her size to her advantage throughout the rest of the story. She manages to maintain humble in her dealings with the creatures and proves herself to be a thoughtful and good listener, and she “seeks first to understand, then to be understood,” an attribute Covey highly admires in a leader (Course Anthology, 220). However, as her confidence grows and as she soaks up enough information about how the creatures and the entire world she is living in operates, she feels the need to speak up when something does not sit right with her. Most memorable of these instances is when she responds to the Red Queen’s instructions to “speak when you’re spoken to!” with the well-thought out and logical remark of, “But if everybody obeyed that rule […], you see nobody would ever say anything!” (Through the Looking Glass, 251).
(Though kind of an... odd band, this song by Freak Kitchen actually supports the Queen's argument to Alice of only speaking when spoken to. Alice grew confidence from listening and learning from her surroundings, disagreed with this statement, and voiced her opinions politely and logically - the way a leader does.) Video Courtesy of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc329X_8bFo
By the end of Through The Looking Glass, Alice has absorbed an incredible amount of knowledge from those she has encountered in this other world. She has exemplified many traits generally seen in leaders and feels, I believe, confident living in any world. Reading about Alice’s struggles with leadership has encouraged me to employ the methods that she and Covey utilize; techniques such as listening to and learning from the faster swimmers around me, accepting that this is the world I live in now and I have no choice but to adapt to it, and remaining humble even when I feel that I am working harder in the pool than others. Alice has taught me that there is more than just one type of leader – and that the definition of a leader in the pool doesn’t have to be the fastest swimmer. I can learn to use my position as a young team member with an injury to be a good listener to others going through the same thing. And, hopefully I can follow Alice’s path and gain confidence in my ability and myself. With such a combination as this, I hope that leadership will come naturally to me once again.
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