Being a York Award Leader

Hello again! Recently I completed a programme which is enormously valuable for my personal development, and would like to share my experience with all of you. It is the York Award Leaders programme, created by the Careers team. This programme has been developed to give a selected group of students with leadership potential a 3-day intense workshop in exploring leadership. A topic was assigned to each day: understand, explore and develop.

A few workshops were organized for us to focus on our individual perspectives of leadership. During the day, we were asked to redefine our strengths, weaknesses, values, etc., to have a better understanding of ourselves. We were taught that leadership is not only about how a person leads a conversation in a team, but how they interact with their team members. After all the workshops, I have concluded that being a successful leader is about knowing your personal values, having a good collaboration with your team members and having the ability to utilize your strengths to inspire others. Throughout Day 1, I was given a chance to evaluate my values and my strengths. I also developed my own insight into the framework of leadership.On the second day, we were asked to complete a proposal in a group of 12. We used the skills we learnt on day 1 to complete a task in a team. On that day, we were only given 7 hours to complete the task and present our results in front of a employer panel. It was a rewarding experience to work with people with different cultural backgrounds and specializing in different subject fields. Throughout the whole process, there were so many times that we had different opinions, however, skills that had been learnt the day before helped us to solve the problems. Although it was a tough work for us, it was an unforgettable experience for me to work out a proposal within half   day.

On the third day, we completed a group interview with a real employer using the skills we gained during the programme. It was truly a time for me to review myself. I am really grateful that I was given a chance to participate in this programme. There were so many times for me to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone. My leadership skills have been developed and will allow me to perform better in my job after graduation. This experience has provided me skills and knowledge that I can use in job applications, and to solve other problems that I will doubtless encounter as my career moves forward. I am really pleased to be one of the participants and strongly encourage students to participate in this programme. It provides you with an unique experience and will help you to become tomorrow’s leader.