The importance of peer leaders

Peer group leaders are a select group of people within their age or younger in different settings, be it in work spaces, a school, community or even religious settings. Peer leaders play an important role, for they influence the productivity and attitude of the environment they lead and influence.

John Quincy Adams said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” This article is an empirical case for the value of peer leaders in our community.

From the beginning of time, man learnt organization from having the family structure divided into specific roles, like hunting, building, medicine and even conflict resolution, headed by people who were skilled in the said areas or had the maturity, wisdom and capacity to handle the positions. These leaders were tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the people they led had sufficient knowledge and training in that field.

For example, the leader of the warriors had to ensure that all warrior recruits had been tested to determine their levels of courage and were taught lessons on warrior values that their followers had to possess to ensure their success as warriors. These leaders are today referred to as peer leaders.

In universities, for example, peer leaders are categorized into student bodies, associations, clubs, sports captains and religious leaders. The roles youth leaders play is first at a community level. These leaders play a major role in bringing cohesiveness in the society, achieved through their ability to work together with other leaders in the process of fostering their objectives as associations and groups.

A good team captain understands the value of other teams in the growth of their own team’s character. Therefore, they will ensure that their team is exposed to other teams to so that they have impeccable people skills and good sportsmanship when it comes to sports.

Peer leaders also ensure that a community is well structured and organized, through the creation of efficient protocol chains that have specialized in specific areas. Thus, peers in junior schools, for example, are able and confident enough to approach one of their own to gain and advise and settle conflicts within themselves that they might shy away from doing in a formal setting.

Also at the community level, peer leaders act as advocates and bridges between their peers and seniors or the administers. This creates harmony and understanding in a society for they get to know and understand both sides and convey a message of one voice, given their leadership skills of being able to discern what the common goal is for both parties. Peer leaders also create an accountable system in the community by guiding their teams.

The second advantage of peer leaders is to those they lead. Peer leaders are role models. The attitude and productivity of a team is determined by their leader. Peer leaders inspire others to be better and achieve more. This is because peer leaders are people chosen among a group of people subjected to the same environment as others. This indicates that everyone is capable of performing like their peer leader, for they are in the same environment.

Further, peer leaders are people with leadership skills, which include values like honesty, hard work, dignity and integrity. Therefore, they are capable of inspiring others to emulate the same characteristics. Peer leaders are also selfless and strive to see the best in others – therefore, they are able to identify potential in others, pushing them to work on themselves. They also enrich the lives of others in the most pivotal time in their lives.

Finally, peer leadership is important to the leaders themselves. Peer leadership requires one to be at their best. It requires one to have leadership skills and possess values that are integral to their development as responsible human beings.

Peer leadership keeps leaders on their toes by ensuring that they are giving a good example to those that look up to them. This in turn helps in helping these individuals grow and become responsible and accountable members of the society in the future, contributing massively to the growth of not only personal values but community values as a whole.

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Ann Mesi Kamanzi is a peer leader at Fellowship of Christian Athletes, an organisation driven with the aim of changing the world through sports.