I have a wide range of roles that I’ll need to play throughout the running of this project. Firstly, I co-lead the creative writing club at school every week with a friend: for this, my main responsibilities include coming up with and presenting the prompts each week, as well as giving the students advice and tips on their writing. However, all this work is split between me and my friend, and we work together on most of these tasks. For the open-mic night, tragically, I’ll be alone: forced to figure things out with only the help of some teachers to guide me. So, I’ll need to coordinate and organise all of that by myself.
I think ‘being a good leader’ is a wide-ranging and broad idea, and there are plenty of different ways to be one. To me, I think it boils down to three things: organisation, compassion and organisation again. Being compassionate means being flexible, I think, and having the ability to listen to the people you are trying to lead. It both means that you know how to control people, and how to make you feel valued.
Organisation, however, is the other half of the equation, and the one I have a greater problem with. I think it’s extremely important for a leader to have a good idea of where a project should, roughly, lead, as well as maintaining enough flexibility to account for unplanned events, or new, good ideas. This is unfortunate for me, a habitual ‘let’s just figure it out as we go along’ person, who is allergic to scheduling. I’ll need to accept that, on this occasion, I’ll have to plan ahead, and pretty far into the future, as well.
So, let’s start planning:
The open mic night will, preferably, occur after school on two evenings, with one event for younger students (years 7 to 9) and one for older students (year 10 to 13). The event will be happening on our school’s ground on the performing arts stage, because of the better atmosphere and comfortable seats. Hopefully, this’ll be a good event for both the students to perform and for their parents to watch them, as well as allowing people to hear some interesting and unique pieces of writing that otherwise wouldn’t have an audience. My dream is that this is so successful, it’ll keep running as a yearly part of the school calendar: but at the same time, if this is the first and last time the event is run, I’ll be happy.
At creative writing club, we frequently ask the students what we could do to make the club more engaging, give them ideas on interesting artistic experiences, etc. Getting their feedback- and they are often very honest about their feedback- can really help us do better at both running the club, and learning how to lead in general. Secondarily, I can get feedback from the teachers who are helping me arrange the event physically, who can give advice on how to lead an event properly.
Overall, I’m excited to start this experience: I have my schedules, my plans, and for once, I’m trying to be professional and organised. I genuinely think that this will be a good thing for both the school and the students, and it’s exactly the sort of thing I would have lived for if I was younger. So, the plan’s all set… all I have to do now is begin.