'Leaders are born'. A famous quote that signifies the term leadership as a virtue that comes with a human life as it originates in this world, and, it is not possible to acquire because not everyone can be a leader. However, with the evolution of modern and well conceptualized system of education and profession, does this statement hold its validity? Not really, because leadership is not just a virtue or skill but a cluster of many qualities and each and every individual possesses at least some of those skills. We as educators and mentors need to understand this even better because this is absolutely crucial in building up a student's personality which will decide what eventually she/he would become. Schools are the best, rather the only institution that can very well exemplify student leadership by including such activities, concepts and training in their curricula. If we have to analyse, what comprises of student leadership, what point would cross our minds in the first place? Somebody who excels at studies, sports, co-curricular activities and everything else that would hold her/him superior to others, however that's not the actual thing what we as schools should promote. Student leaders are those who are empathic, responsible for their actions and decisions, innovative, cooperative, assertive, joyous, and focused. Sounds so much like a story? But to be honest all these virtues can be imbibed in each and every student if the school decides to provide them every possible opportunity. I would like to share my own experience as the career counsellor of a school, wherein the students have achieved some feat in some or the other fields and emerged as leaders. So I shall discuss each of the above mentioned qualities and how we have worked towards the achievement of the same. Empathy, Responsibility and Cooperation-This is by far the most important but most ignored quality that a good leaded must possess. It is impossible to lead a team unless someone understands what each member go through. This is equally applicable on the society and that is how this quality can be nurtured. We gave our students the responsibility of organizing events and programs for the underprivileged category of children. The condition was, the entire project must continue for at least a year with field involvement by every student. The students must visit their dwelling places to understand what adversities these children face and how they can be offered assistance and help which should not be strictly monetary. By the end of the year, we saw an amazing development in each and every student .They are now much sensitive and responsible individual .They now know what the society needs. They know they are privileged so it is their responsibility to share knowledge and resources with those who are deprived. They even learnt the art of empowering those children /youth through one of the programs in which they taught personality development. This was an ultimate level of gratification for us teachers. Assertiveness, Decision making, innovation, Focus- The students were given the responsibility to organize the annual education/career fair of the school. This was a two-day event and the students were given the complete onus including what would be the different counters, events and presentation and who all to be invited. They made the event an outright success. The salient features of the fair were-Industry insight by professional from Banking, Information Technology, Hotel management, aviation, medicine, research and engineering. The students of Grade 12 individually assisted each of the professionals in taking the presentations ahead. Their professional approach, knowledge sharing, research on the respective industry were highly applaud able. Next there was counter presentations by top educational institutes across the globe. This was open to parents of the students as well as to other students and schools. Each student of Grade 11 and 12 had to present a short educative documentary which was based on any subject of their choice that would reflect latest concept and research in the respective field. This was carried out really well by them and by the end of the second day we felt that this was such an knowledge enriched event looked like organized by professionals. So, we can see, it happens. Leaders can be made and this indispensable in the present environment of competition that each student must own her/his unique quality that would enable them to accomplish their goal. We as educators don't really need something additionally colossal to achieve this. Intact, with a proper planning and with small but unique activities and assignment besides sports and academics we can build up the personalities of our students, not only to make them a better person but also to make the world a better place for them.
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