INDIANAPOLIS – Just a day into my third high school journalism convention, two things had already taken my breath away.

The first being the American Airlines flight from Dallas to Indiana, where I tried and failed to down a cranapple drink before my friend finished hers.

I decided it would be smart to inhale it down in one gulp, which not only resulted in me coughing like crazy, but also received some weird looks from those seated around me.

However, it was with my sinking pride and scratchy throat that I crossed the skybridge into the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention, only to have my breath taken away again.

Every year when I leave convention I promise myself I won’t forget how I felt, but as soon as I step back in the next year, I know that I have.

Nothing compares to being surrounded by people with the same passions as you, the same drive as you, people who know what it’s like to put in the work.

People who get it.

This year, however, I am coming into it from another perspective, one that proves valuable to understanding what comes next.

Our first session was a leadership workshop and, as I am the editor-in-chief of our paper, it was pretty relevant to me.

Although my friends and colleagues are the most hardworking, talented people I know, something I don’t always notice is how they are vastly different.

We took a work personality test, and suddenly the people I knew were divided into four categories: dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness.

Dominance: the type A personality, the go-getter, the authoritative figure. Influence: the shapers, the motivators, the loyalists. Steadiness: the helpers, the listeners, the smoove-sailors. Conscientiousness: the diplomats, the concentrators, the analytical thinkers.

I glanced at the graphs of each drawn on their packets, spiking up and down where they are the most and least of these qualities.

Looking at my results, I was disappointed. My graph was practically flat across the middle of the page.

I listened to these groups of people, who fit so well into one category, as they were either strong leaders or held the group together. What was I if I didn’t peak in any of these categories?

That’s when I realized something, my friends who stood up in front of me, and those who sat in class in Coppell, are leaders in their own right, but so am I.

As chief, I have had to become someone who can work with not only the dominant members, but also the steady too.

A leader of such a diverse group of people must be authoritative yet kind, helpful yet independent.

I’m still learning how to do this, and will continue to learn it in whatever path I choose next, but what I know for sure now is I can’t be afraid to step out of my comfort zone.

Unless it involves cranapple drink of course, in which case I should stay far, far within it.