The summer before I entered seventh grade, I went to student council camp, which was at the time, and is to this very day, the nerdiest-sounding summer camp I have ever heard of.

Even science-oriented camps like space camp sounded way cooler in comparison.

Yet, that week at The Association of Catholic Student Council's Summer Leadership Conference at Villanova University was a pretty pivotal moment in my adolescence.

However, when I first arrived there, I was overcome by the feeling that I was living a lie and didn't deserve to be at the camp.

The counselors kept talking about how we, as elected student council members, were leaders — and I thought to myself, "If they only knew! I'm no leader. Not only am I not one of the popular kids at my school, I'm probably one of the least popular kids. My election was a total fluke. Nobody in my class expected me to win. I'm no leader. Leaders are popular. Leaders are extroverted and cheery and the life of the party. And that's totally not me."

All through the week, though, the counselors insisted we were leaders, and toward the end of the week, I almost started to buy into it.

And then school started, and I remained one of the least popular kids in my class (or so I thought), and that was the end of that.

But it wasn't, really.

I never became one of the popular kids ... but I did contribute to student council. I did recognize ways to make the school a better place, and I tried to live out one of TACSC's slogans and "Make It Happen."

It wasn't until I hit college that I really started to recognize and appreciate that quiet leadership could be a legitimate form of leadership, and that it could often be much more powerful than loud leadership.

Quiet leadership doesn't draw attention to itself. It is not the type of leadership that uses rallying cries or bullhorns. There's a place for that ... but it's not the only form of leadership out there.

Quiet leadership might involve a person working behind the scenes to get a project done. He may not be the official leader, but he's the one who manages to make things happen.

Quiet leadership is often instructional. When I worked at the campus newspaper in college, I tried to make it a point to give each of the editors who worked below me an opportunity to learn what I did and actually get their hands dirty doing it, since I knew that they would eventually be the ones who would replace me.

Those tutorial sessions didn't involve bombastic speeches — they just involved a guy who wanted to help out.

And that can be leadership.

Simply doing little things that make a difference, even if you're not popular, even if you don't get the credit, even if there's a figurehead involved who takes on the more traditional leadership role, even if it seems like nobody's following you ... that can be leadership.

After all, not ever leader attracts a group of followers from day one. Often, it's not until he's well into his journey that anyone decides to tag along.

And I think it's important to affirm quiet leadership as a legitimate type of leadership, lest anyone like seventh-grader Shaun get discouraged and think that because he doesn't fit the Big Man on Campus mold, he isn't (or couldn't be) a leader.

I do consider myself a leader today, and I encourage any of you who may doubt your leadership abilities to consider that you may not be the type of person we commonly think of as a leader ... but your actions and your aspirations may point to your being much more of a leader than you might think.