Communicating in Leadership:

Some specific questions answered for both levels of this examination..

Introduction to Communicating in Leadership:

Q: In Section 1 “Research a local or national leader of your choice” can this be someone the candidate considers to be a

leader?

A: Yes the choice of leader is up to the candidate. The 'subject' certainly does not have to be widely known. A local leader, for

example, may be a guide or scout leader, a sports coach, youth leader, a school teacher etc etc. The key aspect is for the

candidate to discover the attributes that make this person a good leader and to be able to extend the audience's awareness and

knowledge of leadership. The content of the talk will define and justify the candidate's choice of leader.

Q: Am wondering how to guide my student in choosing an inspirational reading?

A: The key thing to bear in mind when choosing an 'inspirational' reading is that it should be appropriate to the audience and the

occasion. Once you know the reason for the gathering then the choice of an inspirational passage may fall into place. For

example an Anzac service at school would use a very different passage to, say, an assembly to begin 'book week' at school.

Both these occasions call for an inspirational reading, but would be totally different in purpose and content.

Note, too, that the wording of the section calls for a 'prepared passage' which leaves open the choice of poetry or prose.

Communicating in Leadership:

Q: In Section 3 a) or b) does the candidate read out the whole article to her audience, or just appropriate parts?

A: No the candidate does not need to read out the whole article. It may be appropriate to briefly précis the article and then just

focus on the aspect the candidate wishes to develop in discussion. The purpose of the article is to act as a springboard for the

discussion.

Q: In discussion what exactly should be focused on? I presume as much as possible we need to relate the leader's

qualities to those of the audience's.

A: In using an article about a specific leader - then the candidate would need to identify one or two aspects of their leadership

that may be appropriate to develop with the group. Sometimes it can be a good idea for a student to have 1 or 2 aspects in

mind for discussion, then have another one in reserve in case the group 'dry up'.

Work to explore with your student(s) beforehand:

►Who is in the discussion group,

►What leadership roles do they have (these may be simple roles, leadership roles they aspire to, or more obvious

such as sports captains, prefects etc)

What is my purpose. This may be as simple as 'to make students more aware of their own leadership roles' or there may be a

very specific purpose such as 'creating strong leaders in the upper school'. If appropriate the candidate could also place the

discussion in context of, say, a weekend leadership school.

Remember there is a 10 minute limit for this section. Create a ‘time budget’ for this, by allocating, say, 2 minutes to

introduce the article and initiate discussion and 1 minute to summarise and bring the discussion to a conclusion then there

will be 7 minutes for the actual discussion itself.

Q: I am teaching your Communicating in Leadership examination for the first time and have 3 questions regarding the

session on discussion:

May a student use an article on a NZ leader who is not well known but who has interesting leadership qualities?

[Section 3: i) a.]

May a student use an article that covers a range of leadership styles? [Section 3: i) b.]

Is an audience with a range of ages and ‘mixed’ leadership roles appropriate for this discussion section?

A:

1. Yes, if there is a local leader who's leadership role has been featured in an article, including a local newspaper, that satisfies

the requirements. The only proviso would be that the leadership qualities of this person can be researched and this provides

an appropriate springboard for discussion with the group. The purpose of this exercise is to discover elements of good

leadership and help an audience look at their own leadership roles and what they can learn from the candidate's chosen

'leader'.

2. Again, yes. The article may well feature several aspects of leadership. Your candidate should very briefly sum up these

aspects for his/her audience, then with the relatively limited time for discussion in this section they may be wise to just focus

on one or two aspects that relate best to the leadership (or possibly intended leadership) roles of the group.

3. The syllabus states 'the leadership roles of members of the audience', so a mixed audience should not create a problem. If the

audience have already thought about their leadership roles then they will bring a wealth of experience into the discussion.

Pam Logan