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 * Students' Reflections on their Leadership Workshop **

In this course, I have gained an understanding of my skills, as well as abilities. Deep down inside my heart, I know these abilities, skills and strengths of mine are what makes me- me. Therefore, I have a certain realization that in council, each OT has to have people who have skills that complement each other. This coupled with the desire to succeed, the hunger for improvement and the grit and determination will be factors in the arduous road to success.”
 * “The leadership talk by Dr. C. Branton Shearer has been a tremendous insight on me as well as people around me . ** As how the course had started, it is vindicated that people comes from different walks of life. They are unique in varying ways, just as how no two people may be identical. Each has his own strengths and weakness, but it is how we fuse ourselves together, to mould and meld a statue of harmony. Different people choose to walk down a different path. The lighthouse that guides us in terms of personality and choices are painted a different colour. It seems that in our context of council life, to work together smoothly takes more than just ‘capable’ people in the team. Yes, it is true that capable people will produce work of higher caliber, but it takes certain people to gel together, to complement each other such that one’s weakness(s) is covered up by another’s strength(s) and vice versa.
 * Aaron Koh **

I also felt that the way Dr Shearer conducted the course was interactive, as he tried to incorporate movement and humour into the session. This prevented us from dozing off and promoted constant motion, keeping each and everyone one of us active. He also aroused interest in me as he used the “brain science” to explain certain characteristics in leadership and behaviours. After attending this magnificent course, I felt that I have improved greatly on my intrapersonal skills. I found out much more about myself. To name a few, I learnt why I consistently did below my expected results that my friends, teachers, adults and parents thought I could get after a mature, thought provoking conversation with me. I also learnt about other things, for example, I always felt a certain musical speciality in myself, however, my results in practical ABRSM examinations reflected are average. I learnt from this strength profile that out of the four components in the Musical section I am actually high in composing and vocal ability, moderate in appreciation and low in instrument. This had answered many questions that teachers, parents, psychological books have failed to answer. Lastly, I also discovered that my abilities fit me best if I take a job in financial services. I am absolutely delighted about this fact as my whole life; I had no qualms of showing my passion and interest in the areas of economics. After this profiling and the session with Dr Branton Shearer, I have further strengthened my belief in myself and I further pursue my passion come A levels, when I get to take Economics as a subject. Hence, I encourage everyone to try this course out.”
 * “The MIDAS has allowed me to become more aware of my strengths and nurture my weaknesses. ** I am more conscious of my movements and certainly pay more attention to times when I have to exploit my weaknesses. Taking the Midas has been valuable to know why and how I react or succeed in categories I studied in. It was realistic, though the results surprised me a little bit initially. After awhile, I come to realize that these strengths that were results of the test were actually hidden, and needed to be developed. I also realized that through this test, I better understood how to develop upon my weaknesses and use them to my full advantage.
 * Alfred Wan **

“After taking part in this lecture by Dr Branton Shearer, I now know better about my strengths and weaknesses, and what jobs I can consider doing when I grow up, jobs that are suitable for me. What’s most important, I have learnt how to be a better leader. From this beneficial course, I learnt many things, which would ultimately decide the course of my leadership direction. I learnt that in order to be a good leader, I needed to have 4 important keys. These were important, as I needed to understand my team thoroughly. I learnt that there are many forms of leaders. I think I would be more of an indirect leader. The first task I have would be to self-manage and self-understand. In this way, only can I bring myself to greater heights. In conclusion, I have learned a lot from this workshop and would recommend it to my juniors next year.”
 * This leadership programme is definitely very interesting and enriching, as I have enjoyed it very much. ** Even though it took up my whole Saturday, I felt that I did not waste any time, and have learnt a lot of new and useful knowledge, knowledge that will carry me forward up till even when I become an adult. I would definitely recommend this course to everyone I know, and I hope to take part in it again next time.”
 * Desmond Chong **
 * Glenn Goh **

I think that the MIDAS profiling he went through with us was really interesting. To me, it’s like looking at myself which made me feel more engaging. Furthermore, he helped us to better analyse what areas do we major in etc. This has helped me to be more conscious of parts of my character and in which area do I have to build on which I believe is most important in the process of becoming a good leader. Overall, I think that this course was very useful to me and I have brought home precious treasures of knowledge to apply in the council life. I would like to thank the school and the ProEd consortium for organizing this workshop for me.”
 * “Personally, I feel that the workshop was very detailed and opened my eyes to the real meaning of leadership, my personality, qualities etc. ** I learned that being a leader is not as easy as what I thought it would be and I would put my heart and soul in the council to serve others- the school.
 * Izumi Tan **

Hence, having gone for this session, it has motivated me to work even harder and to strive for better results. All in all, it was a memorable and enriching experience and I and sure that it has benefited all of us. I hope that there will be more of these in future.”
 * Dr Branton Shearer is undoubtedly an amazing man. He has a fantastic way of bringing forth his messages. ** Instead of the usual lectures that we will get in the auditorium of lecture theatres, I feel that this ‘close-up’ encounter with Dr Shearer was fantastic. When Dr Shearer spoke to us, he did not sound like a lecturer. Instead, he sounded like a friend advising us. It was also an engaging dialogue session. We had great interactive time whereby we could joke with him and ask him questions should we have any. It was a very informal one.
 * Janus Low Zhi Yu **

“The most interesting part of this course was that Dr Shearer allowed us to understand our own brain and how it works, basically it was very helpful as I was able to correspond this to my everyday and how can I use it. Especially the part of career paths was very useful too, as I was able to understand how my strengths can be incorporated in to my future jobs. On the whole it was a very enriching experience to learn on one’s strengths and weaknesses as well as explaining why we would get such results.”

Jason Boey
I really enjoyed this talk and it has helped me to realise my strengths and weaknesses. I will try to improve on my weak areas to become a better person. I sincerely hope that there will me more of these interesting talks in the future.”
 * “I feel that the MIDAS leadership talk was very enriching and fun-filled. ** In the morning, Dr. Branton Shearer started off by placing a stone in front of each of us. We were then told to guess the significance behind the stone. After discussing, we managed to come up with the answer that each and every one of our leadership styles was different. Dr. Shearer cracked a few jokes and this started the day off with a light note. We were quite ready to share our views as we were quite settled and the ‘ice’ was broken.

Jerrold Au Ying Xian
To lead, one must understand his teammates. A leader must be able to read what is on his teammates’ minds, understand their circumstance and help them. A good leader must also be able to “take a walk in his teammates’ shoes”. Life is always complicated. In life, we meet many problems we cannot solve or have a hard time solving. Leaders are there to show people how to solve that problem and to motivate them to work. Leading takes logical thinking too. To help others solve their problems, leaders must have a better-than-average logical thinking. A leader has to be curious and observant. He must be able to notice what others don’t pay much attention to and study why. He must also be a naturalist. He should have the naturalist intelligence and the pattern recognition skills. Overall, I have benefited greatly through this course, learning how to further improve my leadership skills. When the course ended, all the councilors left unwillingly. Dr Shearer left us with a question, How will you inspire your teammates? I hope that in future, more of this kind of programmes will be organized.
 * “So what makes a leader different from the rest? A leader has to think differently from the rest of the people. He has to be a thinker.” ** -a quote from Dr Shearer. Personally I have never realized that point, how valid it was. Only until then did I realized why our council chairman and vice-chairman thought so differently from the rest of the council, and only a few other understood what they were planning to do.