~by Haley Lynn Gray~
My younger daughter — also known in our house as Thing 2, Weaselburger, and One Who Sells Many Cookies — has always had an interesting sense of fashion.
When she was younger, it was common for her to modify her outfits with duct tape, or simply take a pair of scissors to whatever she was wearing. She had no interest in shopping at the popular mall stores everyone else went to. She preferred to create her own style.
I’ve always thought of it as a kind of leadership. Leadership, weasel style.
Marching to her own beat
This is a kid who marched to the beat of her own band and didn’t much care what others thought.
Being called a geek is usually meant as an insult. She took it as a compliment. One day a boy at school called her ugly, so she thanked him kindly for his opinion — and was rather amused by how confused he looked.
That takes a confidence many adults never find.
What happened next
She’s grown up now, and she’s still every bit as independent. She’s just come back from the Formula 1 race near Milan.
When she wants something, she makes it happen. That was true of a duct-taped outfit, and it’s true of a trip to an Italian Grand Prix. The scale changes. The trait doesn’t.
Why this is leadership
We tend to picture leadership as standing at the front of a room. But a great deal of it starts much earlier and much more quietly — with people who are comfortable not following the crowd.
Independence. Being willing to do things your own way, even when everyone else is doing something different, is the root of every original idea and every new business.
Not needing approval. Not everyone will like you, and people who are at peace with that are free to make decisions others won’t.
Composure under criticism. Thanking someone for an insult isn’t just funny. It’s refusing to let someone else decide how you feel.
Making things happen. Wanting something is common. Going and getting it is leadership.
For parents raising independent girls
If you’ve got a child who does things her own way, it can be exhausting. Duct tape on good clothes is not every parent’s dream.
But those traits — independence, self-assurance, indifference to the crowd — are exactly what a girl will need later, when the world starts rewarding her for being agreeable instead.
Protect them. Guide them, by all means. But don’t train them out of her.
