I was also a young section leader. You have to gain respect by just being a good leader. Take initiative, be personable, have control and allow control!

i feel that a section leader is not one who takes charge solely, may not have the best hands, but has the drive to get things done in a timely manner with the ability to not cause problems. the more the people are able to take a leadership role the more they put the drive into others. but even without a leadership role if the section is new like my freshman year nobody knows what to do, how to do it, so we goofed off most practices. we also did nominations for section leader and then we had a new person to the section as somebody else to sit on the section leader meetings to understand all that has to be done. the section leaders provide goals daily, weekly, and what to do before the contest with incentives like bringing some special food in or something. it helped. there was little resentment and high moral in every single section. and we also did votes on various things instead of the leader just choosing so it was more of everybody's input instead. leadership roles should always be present