My Experience being a leader at Google Developer Students Club Moi University

Being selected as a leader

I remember congratulating Ivy Walobwa for being selected as the lead at GDSC Moi University and commenting

“looking forward to working with you”

At the time I only said that because it was a nice thing to say. I just did not know that she took it literally.
A few days later she approached me and asked me to take the position of Vice lead. I was shocked to receive such a request. I was not expecting to be directly involved or even considered as I had no leadership or great technical skills.

At the time I was being selected, I was home as schools had closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I did not have much technical experience then. I had learned the basics of web development and was studying JavaScript(although making no progress). So there was no way I was ready to be a leader in a developer community. Or so I thought.

I accepted the position because I did not want to let anyone down. At the back of my mind, I was really scared and worried that I would just make a fool of myself.

Challenges that came up with the role

So here I was, a newbie programmer accepting to lead other developers, some of who are more skilled than him. Every day this kept sinking in my mind and imposter syndrome got tuned up. “What a mistake I have made”, I thought to myself.

The duties were not an issue as most of what we did was brainstorming and planning. The elephant task was the live online sessions. I was often selected to help in the smooth running of the sessions and it required public speaking. I’ve never had public speaking skills and this presented a challenge.

Another challenge was living up to the expectation of the developer community. As a vice-lead, I was a direct representative of the lead and this had to be seen in my skill level and character. This was a heavy responsibility. Especially with my skill level at the time. It was going to take drastic action to turn things around.

I had to either rise to the challenge or just give up on the role.

Making changes

To be a stellar community lead, changes had to be made.

First I had to make progress in my technical skills. I decide to take a deep dive into the remaining part of JavaScript that I was still dragging around. So I made little progress every day, learning something small in JavaScript every day. This cumulatively made me better.
I also decide to improve my soft skills. I joined various global communities. Notably, I joined Design Buddies where I interacted and developed networking skills as well as learn more about UX Design (a topic of interest to me). I also joined Hult Design Thinking Club where I improved and practiced my design thinking skills and also public speaking. The sessions were online and very interactive. Tech for She also gave an awesome experience interacting with attendees in their workshops and events.

Joining and taking part in these various global communities not only broadened my network but also gave me a boost by improving my confidence and soft skills

As a result of networking in the global events and workshops, I got invited to join Aimily team. A startup based in Tokyo, Japan and was recruiting developers and designers from different countries to collaborate and build a React Native application. Here I learned both technical skills like React and React Native but also improved soft skills like communication, remote work, collaboration, and tools used.

With these changes taking place in my life I was able to be a better community leader and improving my performance in the team.

The main benefit of being a leader

Being a leader has so many benefits and I won't dwell on those already known but that which I have noticed: Accountability and growth.

There is no greater benefit of being a leader than the accountability and growth it brings to your life.
Many times we set personal goals that we want to achieve. We feel so in the moment and we are sure that the goals if achieved can change our lives, but days later we lie to ourselves. We slack off and don’t follow through. But tell your friend you are going to do a task, it is much harder to fail to follow through because someone else is watching you. This phenomenon is called The Hawthorne Effect.

The Hawthorne Effect refers to a psychological effect where people modify their behavior after the realization that they are being observed.

Being a leader, you are always in the spotlight and a lot of people observe your moves and expect much from you.

Being constantly watched

The awareness of this constant monitoring makes you change and better suit the role you are leading. It certainly happened to me. You are no longer in your own comfort zone where you can always set goals you want to achieve then forfeit them because you are only letting yourself down. It proves to be much harder to let a whole community down.

Conclusion

Therefore my best advice to you is that anyone can be a leader, even you. Take up that leadership role you’ve wanted, push yourself out of your comfort zone, adapt to the role, and see the growth that will happen.