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If you’re in Year 11 (or Year 10) at the moment, you might be considering applying for a leadership position next year. School Captain, House Captain, Student Representative – whatever it is, a leadership position is a leadership position.

And there are certainly pros and cons of doing so.

Near the end of Year 11, I spent several weeks tormenting myself over whether or not to apply for School Captain. It actually became a bit of a distraction in the end.

Eventually, I sat down and wrote pros and cons about applying. They looked something like this:

Potential pros:

•     I think I would develop as a person as a result
•     I’ve always kinda wanted to do it
•     It would be good for employment opportunities in the future
•     Closer relationships with teachers and other students
•     Opportunity to improve the school for future students
•     I think I’d regret it if I didn’t at least apply

Potential cons:

•     I don’t know if I’d be good at it
•     I want to do well in Year 12; it might be too time-consuming
•     Public speaking is gross, and I get anxious a lot
•     What if I don’t like the rest of the leadership team?
•     Potential for even more stress
•     It’d be embarrassing if I applied but wasn’t selected

In summary, I was pretty sure I wanted to do it, but was also low-key scared.

There were – and are – a lot of “what ifs” at play. IMO, it’s important to move past those thoughts.

WHY YOU SHOULD APPLY FOR SCHOOL CAPTAIN

(… or, indeed, any other leadership role.)

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

So, straight off the bat:

Doing stuff like this will undoubtedly benefit you, even if you don’t recognise it at the time.

Don’t really like public speaking? Sweet. That’s not really a reason not to apply. In fact, you could argue that it’s a great reason why you should apply – you’ll become more accomplished!

Don’t feel much of a natural leader? That’s okay – you don’t need to be to lead effectively.

Don’t enjoy interacting with fellow members of the human species? Neither. But the better practised at it you are, the more easily you can navigate unpleasant conversations. 😉

Seriously: taking a leadership position will very likely help develop your skills. You’ll probably grow a lot as a person – and that’s debatably much more important than the four-digit number you’ll get at the end of it all (I, for one, certainly think so).

IT’LL BE ALL G

Oftentimes, I think a lot of us have a tendency to immediately go to the worst possible situation in our minds. I sure do.

“What if I have five SACs in three days PLUS training PLUS piano practice PLUS writing this essay PLUS all the stuff I have to do as School Captain like organise a trivia night and speak at nine assemblies and go to the local council to talk with the elderly and develop a plan for the next six financial years and teach a class of German 3/4 and sacrifice three days of sleep and set a good example by only having white socks that don’t have logos and sufficiently go up to my ankle but definitely not past it?!?!?!”

Like, yeah. Maybe there’ll be times where the leadership position adds a bit to your plate. But realistically, it’s unlikely the workload won’t be manageable.

If you think about it, your school wants you to do as well as possible; it simply wouldn’t make sense for them to pile heaps and heaps of responsibilities on you if they didn’t think you could manage them.

N  O     R  A  G  R  E  T  S

I honestly haven’t seen the movie that^ reference is from, so I feel a bit of a fraud. But oh well.

It’s true, though – you don’t want to have regrets down the line. Often, the biggest regrets revolve around not what you did do, but around what you didn’t do.

Profound.

A question I like to ask myself: “In ten years, what are you going to remember from this situation?”

Will it be the tediousness of the application process? Doubtful.

What about not applying, and therefore never knowing where doing so might have led you? Yeah, maybe.

I think it’s one of those things you just have to go for.

MY EXPERIENCE

So, I was a pretty shy kid. Always kinda wanted to be a leader, but also always kinda found it easier to just… float by.

In the end, I made an application.

It was an objectively good application, too. I was very prepared with my vision, where I thought we could improve, and so on. I was happy to score an interview.

If nothing else, the interview itself was a good experience. It compounded in me the belief that preparation is extremely important to success.

I got through the interview, and made a speech to my peers and teachers. I was nervous. It wasn’t outstanding an outstanding speech; I’m not the world’s best public speaker. But I think I decently portrayed my genuine enthusiasm for the role (by this stage, I definitely wanted to get it).

My peers didn’t voted for me to be School Captain, but I did nab Vice-Captaincy.

And it really was one of the best parts of my Year 12 experience. If you’re even considering applying for a Year 12 leadership position, I really, really encourage you to do it.

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