High School Leadership Might Be The Most Difficult Yet

Leadership is one thing in our lives we have all experienced directly or indirectly. We have at a point been given some responsibility to do. In school, even asked to get a list of talkers or noise disturbers for me is some kind of leadership or maybe a bit more responsibility.

I have been quite fortunate with leadership because I have been involved directly. Right from my primary school days, I have had to chance to lead my class. I remember I was the class captain from primary 3 till junior high school 1 or 2. The only time I wasn’t a class captain was my last year in high school when my class tutor said he wanted to have some new faces lead the class.

Aside being the class captain for most of my childhood, I have had the opportunity to be the school prefect in junior high and also the president for a number of associations in my junior high school. That continued to my senior high school when I decided to run for a position. That was a bit new because although I had held a lot of positions before, I did not apply for some. Some of them, I was appointed and then voting was done while others, I did present myself to lead.

So, when I picked up a form for the position of library prefect in my senior high school, I was feeling very nervous. I had to gain approval from my house master and then I went for vetting. I wasn’t very fazed by the prospect of the interview because I had done a few before and knew sometimes they just want to access how confident you are. In addition, I think only two of us were in for that portfolio hehe.

Fortunately, I was vetted and approved and I started campaigning. Elections were held and I didn’t win meaning I had to be the assistant. I was not very excited by that when the results were announced but I became okay with it.

I realized how challenging leadership was when we got sworn it for our tenure of office. Sometimes my colleagues and I had to be out of class so we could attend to student needs. Sometimes we ha d to work with the librarians to put things in place while other times we had to work with other prefects to sort some things out. You really do not see how challenging it is to be a prefect until you have first hand experience.

Sometimes I had to be out of class while my class mates were studying and sometimes I had to miss morning “preps” because together with the other prefects, we had to see to it that the school was neat and ready for studies. Sometimes I felt like staying out of some duties because technically they weren’t in my job description and they were taking my time but then we all prefects were a team and so I just had to find a way to balance everything.

Handing over day but I am not in the picture

Did the student body ever think I was taking advantage of my position? Yes, of course they did. Even before I was voted into power, I thought same and maybe that even contributed to be vying for the position so I would have been surprised if they didn’t think that. Well, I wouldn’t say that is completely false because quite frankly, holding a portfolio in the school gave some advantages but then I like to believe I didn’t use it for some undue advantages.

In terms of using it to cheat the students, I never did that. I don’t think I ever abused anyone with my position but then you never know. Maybe the students saw it in a different light. Leadership in senior high school I must say is not easy at all. Having to juggle your own studies and the needs of the school administration and that if the student body is very tough.

In all, I like the experience I gained from being a library prefect in high school most of all in addition to my association position and junior high school portfolios.