A leadership course about real leadership.
It all happens very quickly. By the end of this day, students will be leading – identifying opportunity, initiating change and enlisting recruits. Don’t book it unless you are ready for things to start moving in your school!
- If no one shares my dream, should I forget it?
- How do I turn a good idea into a strategic action plan?
- How do I build a loyal, energised and effective team?
- How do I take charge without being an autocrat?
- What skills do I need to overcome obstacles?
- If it goes horribly wrong, who’s fault is it?
- If it goes amazingly well, who should be proud?
True leaders have a ‘can do’ attitude and get things done. They are brave, bold, visionary and proactive. They respect others but don’t fear them, engage others and motivate them, listen with empathy and flexibility but stay true to their values and keep focused on their goal. They embrace responsibility, look for solutions and have a strong sense of autonomy that empowers them to push down barriers.
Why “Kingpin”? Because true leaders run the show at the end of the day. Of course they can collaborate, delegate and will surround themselves with people. However, when it comes to tough decisions, taking initiative, holding the flag and paving the way, with a certain inner strength, the leader plays the key pivotal role at the centre of it all.
A leadership course about real leadership.
It all happens very quickly. By the end of this day, students will be leading – identifying opportunity, initiating change and enlisting recruits. Don’t book it unless you are ready for things to start moving in your school!
- If no one shares my dream, should I forget it?
- How do I turn a good idea into a strategic action plan?
- How do I build a loyal, energised and effective team?
- How do I take charge without being an autocrat?
- What skills do I need to overcome obstacles?
- If it goes horribly wrong, who’s fault is it?
- If it goes amazingly well, who should be proud?
True leaders have a ‘can do’ attitude and get things done. They are brave, bold, visionary and proactive. They respect others but don’t fear them, engage others and motivate them, listen with empathy and flexibility but stay true to their values and keep focused on their goal. They embrace responsibility, look for solutions and have a strong sense of autonomy that empowers them to push down barriers.
Why “Kingpin”? Because true leaders run the show at the end of the day. Of course they can collaborate, delegate and will surround themselves with people. However, when it comes to tough decisions, taking initiative, holding the flag and paving the way, with a certain inner strength, the leader plays the key pivotal role at the centre of it all.
Typically this course would include:
- Stories and examples of dynamic leadership decisions and strategies.
- Discussion activities to explore the qualities of a great leader and the challenges they face. This naturally leads to plenty of healthy disagreement and noisy debate. We rarely offer strong advice but rather ask probing questions and present hypothetical scenarios to encourage students to challenge clichés and common assumptions and to help them think through the issues for themselves and develop their own informed opinions.
- A Wiser Words problem-solving activity, tackled in competing teams, so students have a go at putting theory into practice. The role of leader alternates with each student receiving a different leadership challenge.
- A presentation task to formalise student conclusions.
- A Wiser Words ideas game to demonstrate how to generate, filter, select and fine-tune ideas. This naturally flows into…
- A student-led meeting to agree upon and consolidate an achievable action plan for a new school initiative
With all the current education talk about bravery, boldness and independence, we wanted to create a course about genuine dynamic leadership. We realised that meant so much more than just addressing the skills of a competent project manager. We had to create something that had as its aspirational focus those truly exceptional, brilliant, daring, innovating individuals who deserve the credit for making the world a better place.
We also realised that although those kinds of leaders may have a strong team around them, there is no avoiding the fact that true leaders must ‘reign’ in the sense that the buck stops with them. If all participants in an enterprising team are equally responsible and accountable, then the truth is that the ‘leader’ cannot properly call him or herself a real leader. If we were going to be bold in the design of this course, we couldn’t shy away from that and we would need to challenge each individual student to consider themself as a potential Kingpin.
With independent thinking, taking the initiative, drawing upon the breadth of one’s skills and striving for excellence being at the core of all our courses, we believe that this new course epitomises everything we stand for at Wiser Words so we’re really excited about it!
The aspect of the course that we are most excited about is the outcome, being one that encourages the students to do something of their own initiative that will benefit their school community. We all know how much employers and universities want to see applicants who can demonstrate problem-solving skills and an ability to think for themselves. The results of this course can serve as hard evidence of that.
By the end of the day, students should not only be able to express some of their own developed opinions about leadership and justify them well, but they should also be fired up with an action plan for a project they are determined to achieve.
Further Benefits
Alongside the obvious benefits to those attending the course, if they succeed in the projects that follow afterwards, there should also be genuine benefits to the rest of the school – maybe the school gets a new chess club or a creative writing competition or a political podcast or fund-raising fashion show. Who knows what they will come up with! We are careful to enforce the point that any initiative should be student-led and although they can call upon their teachers or parents for a bit of help and advice, they can only stand proud and give themselves a pat on the back if they do it themselves. So that should also mean minimal teacher time!
“I realise now that I can actually make things happen.”
“Awe-inspiring! It was much more exciting and interesting than other courses and taught in a fun way.”
“I loved the problem-solving activity because we had to decipher codes and clues and we each had a specific task. A unique and memorable way of teaching leadership that was intellectually challenging.”
“I found the prospect of using this course to productively make a change in school very interesting. One of the best courses I have been on because it successfully combined discussion with activities.”
“I will now take the initiative more often and put myself forward to lead a group.”
“I liked that we needed to put forward loads of ideas and then challenge them.”
“I enjoyed talking with people in older years and generating ideas for my school.”
“I found the idea-finding part most interesting as it helped develop leadership but also creativity, public speaking and analysis.”
“A brilliant and thrilling course which built the confidence of our team massively. I really enjoyed learning about different types of people and how all together we can make a brilliant team.”
“This course is unique. I haven’t been on anything like it before. I thought it was brilliant. I enjoyed the dilemma section and the ‘hands off’ approach that allowed us to be independent.”
“An exceptional day which really allowed our students to understand their own potential in being young leaders. A positive rapport was immediately built with the students which allowed them to truly express themselves with confidence. I have no doubt that this course will leave a lasting legacy for student leadership within our school.”
“This course was simply awe-inspiring. The house captain team have a stronger sense of their overall moral purpose, coupled with a real clarity of their importance as the ultimate role models and student leaders for the school. They were able to engineer a real sense of vision and a clear, precise and detailed plan of action. This was expertly steered and managed by Wiser Words. Today, a few days after the course, the student team came in to see me and presented a highly professional, polished and well thought out vision for the school. In short, the house captains looked like the real deal today.”
They say…
“Now I can definitely win arguments against my brother! It has opened my eyes to a whole new world of possible answers.”
“This was brilliant compared to all the other courses I’ve had in my 17 years. Truly inspirational, I have no higher praise.”
“It made me excited to challenge myself more. Very well managed and structured leading to a brilliant course.”
“I was constantly motivated and recharged with varying discussions and tasks.”
“Enriching, and I’m now more aware of the complexities of questions and the intellectual debate that could follow.”
“I found this day exciting, exhilarating and full of new ideas and things for me to enjoy.”
“The puzzles were thrilling to solve but also very clever and challenging.”
“We got to do everything ourselves and think for ourselves without being spoonfed.”
“I enjoyed getting up to lead. I really didn’t think I’d be able to do it but I felt really good when I did.”
“Amazing and a huge learning curve for me and the whole of my year group. It really developed my communicating skills.”
“It was just fantastic. I loved it! The best bit was seeing everyone’s amazing designs.”
“100% the best course I’ve ever been on. A great experience and I would love to do it again. Every activity was amazing.”
Our course
activities
We use a whole mix of techniques to draw out different skills and appeal to all learning styles
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Advancing
education
We are specialists in education. The design of every course has a reason behind it relating to advanced teaching practice.
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