The Schutz American School Students' Newspaper
Vol. II, Issue No. 6, June 2010

الثلاثاء، 13 يناير 2009

The Leadership Challenge

A Real Leader Inspires and Teaches Others

Heba El Sahn

Last September, the High School Leadership conference was held from September 25th through the 28th at the Cairo American College. The Schutz representatives were: Nada Abou-Gad, Mostafa Barakat, Arnab Chaudhuri. Khaled El Naggar, Heba El Sahn, Malak Kira, Rana Ragab, and Ankita Ray.

The conference was interesting, with many activities, and full of hard work. It started off in the gym with Rich, a representative from the Organization Project Adventure, teaching the students his very own "Chick-a-Boom" dance. This was to get everyone hyped up for the many activities to come. Rich thinks that an individual must challenge himself constantly. He then challenged the students to do rock-climbing.

Ankita Ray was the only Schutz representative that was up to the challenge, and she succeeded in going up the wall and ringing the bell at the end. The students were then placed into small groups and workshops where they were brainstorming fundraising ideas, learning about what kind of leader are they, developing their leadership skills, and exchanging ideas with various students. The SAS students came back to school with many new plans in mind, and they are determined to implement them.

The last day of the conference, two great speeches were given. The first was by the CAC Philosophy teacher; and she compared and contrasted good and bad leaders with one another. This was done by watching many video clips, then later discussing them. The speaker was dramatic and very convincing. The keynote speaker of the conference was Youssef Boutros Ghali, the Egyptian Minister of Finance. A charismatic speaker, he was able to easily catch the attention and gain the respect of the students. The Minister explained that a true leader goes by the 4 Cs:
1) Having conviction in what he is doing
2) Convincing others to follow him
3) Carrying out his message
4) Compromise with other people (since our plans rarely go out the way we plan)

The two speakers agreed firmly on one important matter: a leader should not only inspire others to do the right thing, but he should also teach people about leadership. The Schutz students came back to school fully understanding the concept that being a leader is the easy part; however, teaching others about leadership is what counts and that is the real challenge.

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