What should student leaders actually get to do?

I've been trying to answer a question that came out of our student leadership research: What should student leaders actually get to do?

I've looked back at our research, spent more time with student leadership programs, and thought about the responsibilities students have in very different kinds of organizations. I'm not sure there's one perfect list, but I've started to think it may be more useful to identify leadership activities than to make another list of leadership traits.

Looking for activities instead of traits

There are plenty of words we use to describe good leaders: responsible, confident, collaborative, organized, resilient. Those qualities matter, but they're difficult to practice directly.

You can practice running a meeting, managing a budget, delegating work and following up when it isn't finished, or representing someone else's perspective accurately. So I started looking for activities that passed three tests: Can you tell whether a student actually did it? Did the student have real responsibility? Can a student get better at it through practice?

I looked again at the National Association of Student Councils' Distinguished Student Leader materials and National Council of Excellence criteria, along with the Massachusetts Association of Student Councils' Council of Excellence program. They include activities involving meetings, projects, budgets, student voice, goals, problem solving, service, evaluation, communication, and developing other students.

Some overlap, and that's okay. What I really wanted to know was what kinds of things a student could actually be responsible for doing. Here's where I've landed so far.

Eight leadership activities

1. Meetings
Have you prepared an agenda and run a meeting? Helped a group discuss something, reach a decision, decide what happens next, and follow up afterward?

2. Projects and events
Have you taken an idea from planning through completion? Developed a plan and timeline, coordinated the work, adjusted when something went wrong, and looked afterward at how it went?

3. Coordinating a team
Have you divided work among other students, made responsibilities clear, checked progress, and followed up when something wasn't done?

This one stood out in our research. Students described problems with delegation, accountability, uneven workloads, and getting work done even when their organizations already had ways to communicate. Communication mattered, but it wasn't enough by itself.

4. Money and resources
Have you developed or worked within a budget? Made choices about how money or other resources should be used? Tracked what was spent and adjusted when necessary?

5. Representing others
Have you sought out other students' perspectives, understood where their views differed, and represented those perspectives accurately to someone else?

You might do this in student government, on an advisory council, on a school committee, or somewhere else. You don't have to manage other students to have real responsibility for representing them.

6. Goals and priorities
Have you helped decide what a group should accomplish? Chosen among competing priorities? Decided what success would look like?

7. Problems and disagreements
Have you responded when a plan wasn't working? Worked through a disagreement? Made a difficult choice when there wasn't an obvious answer? Changed course when you needed to?

8. Developing other students
Have you taught another student how to do something? Given useful feedback? Helped a younger member prepare for more responsibility? Helped prepare someone to take over work you've been doing?

Students in our survey talked about being proud of successful events and projects, but they also mentioned relationships, helping other members succeed, service, and their own growth.

Different roles offer different experiences

Looking at my own roles also makes me realize that I probably wouldn't expect one leadership position to provide all eight activities. Student Advisory Council gives me a lot of experience representing other students. Pumpkin Fest gives me more experience planning an event and coordinating a team. DECA gives me another combination.

That makes me think about these activities across a student's experiences rather than within a single role. A student might learn to run meetings in one organization, manage money in another, and represent other students somewhere else. Over several years, those experiences can build on each other.

The activities also aren't the same as the skills we use while doing them. Running a meeting can require communication, organization, listening, decision-making, and time management. Planning an event can require many of those same skills. That's why I haven't made communication or decision-making separate activities. They're capabilities students can develop across many different leadership experiences.

How much responsibility a student has matters too. Two students might both say they've led a project, but their experiences could be very different. One might follow a detailed plan created by an advisor. Another might develop the plan, divide the work, make decisions, adjust when problems come up, and be responsible for what happens.

Reflection belongs in this process too. After running a meeting, planning an event, managing a budget, or working through a disagreement, students can think about what worked, what didn't, and what they would do differently the next time. That's part of how an experience becomes something you can learn from.

I'm still not sure this is the final list. But I keep coming back to the question behind it: By the time a student graduates from high school, what leadership activities should they have had the chance to practice?

This article is part of a series exploring what students actually get to practice through leadership—and how schools and advisors can create stronger leadership experiences. The series grew out of our 2026 research with 271 student leaders and 37 advisors.