Lance-corporal Jason Hart, of Bravo Company 2/4 Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, said the win was a "big honour".
Lcpl Hart has served as a reservist for four years and joined the reserves after attending a Rotary leadership course with a module run by army soldiers.
"I quite liked how they carried themselves ... They mentioned something about the reserves and I haven’t looked back," Lcpl Hart said.
Leadership was a focus for the army at every level, from self leadership, to learning more about leading groups and organisations as you progressed, he said.
Lcpl Hart was born in Australia, grew up in Wellington and studied sports science in Auckland before moving to Dunedin to study medicine.
He has just finished his third year and is moving to Christchurch for his placement in the coming year.
Lcpl Hart is also the founder of Tutor4U, an online platform now in the proof-of-concept stage, which aims to match tutors with learners.
With so much on, Lcpl Hart tries to use his time efficiently.
For instance he does not attend lectures but he watches them on double speed.
"I try and use my time and make it work for me ... Hopefully, I hit all the goals but sometimes I fail — you know there’s only 24 hours in the day. I’m only human. I’m nothing special. I’m just a dude who wants to do a lot of stuff," Lcpl Hart said.
He was grateful to his unit, as without its support he would not be able to do half the things he did, Lcpl Hart said.
Officer commanding Bravo Company 2/4 Battalion Warrant Officer Class Two Dion Beker said Lcpl Hart was a humble guy and it was great to see that all his hard work had been recognised by the defence force.
"The more we can recognise excellence, the more people will strive for excellence," WO2 Beker said.
Lcpl Hart’s win meant Bravo Company, which is the reserve unit based south of the Waitaki River, had won the award three times in the past four years.
The two winners before him were senior members, while Lcpl Hart was a junior NCO who was newly promoted but had quite a bit of impact with his peers, WO2 Beker said.
This year the unit had been focused on training to fail and Lcpl Hart had really got in behind the approach.
He had been the cheerleader on the sideline who had made people realise how good it was to learn from failure and get set up to go again.
His championing of the growth mindset had resulted in the unit’s resilience improving, WO2 Beker said.
