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Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend a conference with the AGSV School Captains and their respective Principals. It was a nice opportunity to meet some fellow counterparts, but one thing from the day stood out to me. In greeting us, the Camberwell Head of Senior School said something that I’ve remembered ever since. He told us that as leaders, we’re not the finished product, and we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be.

Wherever we are, we often expect too much of ourselves. We look up to someone who’s older than us, more experienced than us and beat ourselves up because we’re not like them. But that shouldn’t be what we do. Everyone is different. We take different paths, and end up in different places, places that aren’t necessarily better or worse and so it’s no use to compare ourselves to others.

Not only as leaders, but as students and as people, it’s so important for us to be kinder on ourselves, to acknowledge the things that we’ve already done, the things that we can do, and move forward from that.

We often see leadership as defined roles, as achievements, when in reality, it isn’t that at all. Leadership is a skill and it’s gained through experience, something that you can perpetually improve and change. In speaking to us, Camberwell’s Mrs Hill equivalent confessed that as teachers, they have the chance to do things again and again, whereas us, as Year 12’s, have one year to learn and do everything. We shouldn’t expect to be a finished product at the start of the year, because we aren’t. The purpose of going through Year 12, going through positions of leadership, is to learn about yourself and about those you lead. What would be the point of being a Captain if you could do everything perfect from the very start? The school could simply employ professionals to do that, but no, it’s about learning to be leaders yourselves. And it’s relevant even without formal roles. No one expects you to know everything, to be able to do everything, and so take the opportunities you have, to learn and to improve, because that’s what they are there for.

They say that Leonardo da Vinci took four years to paint the Mona Lisa, repainting and perfecting every aspect. And that’s exactly the same with us and our leadership. It’s impossible that our first draft, our first version of ourselves is perfect. Rather, whether you’re starting your journey through the Senior School in Year 7, or ending it in Year 12, we should take opportunities to learn, be kinder on ourselves and know that our best version yet is still coming.

- Michael Fan