We anticipate 2022 to be a big year for all of us; whether in a leadership position or not. To encourage this, a number of Year 13 students at Pāpāmoa College were given the opportunity to prepare for this year and learn many things about leadership and ourselves through Lead Strong.

Lead Strong is a two-day course is aimed at building strong individuals to form strong teams and was instructed by John Cook from Matatau Ltd. 

On the first day of the course, John split us up into groups by colour. He then introduced us to the three focus areas; Start, Support, and Sustain. Then to the seven commitments; Actions, Goals, Priorities, Cooperation, Understanding, Teamwork, and Balance. 

Day one was to focus on the focus area “Start”, which focused on developing our independent character. We worked on keeping a “blue head” in every situation, to have life, yearly, monthly, daily goals, to schedule our priorities, not to prioritise our schedule, and to walk away from any unhealthy competition. 

These as well as many other aspects of the commitments helped us to grow individually. And on day two we moved to the second focus area “Support”, which focused on developing interactive personality. We worked on listening skills and their importance, communication, and team strength. 

Then finally we went to the last focus area which was “Sustain”, where we learned the importance of preparation in order to perform and how without balance in our lives, we cannot sustain the first six commitments. 

Coming into this year as a Head student of my school, in truth, I was rather nervous. I had never taken up a role this big before, and as excited as I am for this year, I didn’t know what to expect. I’m sure I can speak for the others as well when I say that we were all a little nervous. However, I am confident that for everyone involved, it was very beneficial for all of us and the development of our own mana and combined team strength.