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Hi Everyone! My name is Kevin Wang and I am a Grade 11 student at York Mills Collegiate. Today, I had the pleasure to attend the Illuminate x North York Regional Conference. Here is my blog which strives to highlight what I learned about management and collaboration.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus- Martin Luther King. Jr
Keynotes
From the opening keynote, I learned that the speaker is a successful entrepreneur who has worked in both small and large businesses. Through his many years in the business industry, he has gained experience in job applications and entrepreneurship. The thing I found most interesting was when he contradicted the statement to follow your passion when looking for a job. His reasoning behind this statement was that most of us do not fully know what we are passionate about so he advised us to take caution when we “follow our passion.”
From the second keynote, my key takeaway was that he talked about how he started his own company and learned about entrepreneurship, and gave key tips on how he was successful. The keynote inspired me to maybe one day consider starting a company of my own.
Entrepreneurship and leadership
I consider myself an entrepreneur because like one, I organize team events as I am the head of a club at my school. I also am a captain for my hockey team so I usually prep my teammates and organize lunch meetings and extra practices. If I only had 5$ in my pocket I would start a small and cheap business such as a hot dog stand and slowly make my way up. In the future, I could imply the entrepreneurial mindset by choosing choices that require high risk but give a high reward. An example situation could be my future course selection. If I select biology, I could either be lucky and get put into Mr. Xeroulis’ class which would guarantee me a 95 if I put in the effort. However, I could be unlucky and get put into Ms. Phung’s class who marks very hard so I would risk lowering my overall grade 12 average.
What is one thing I am very passionate about and looking forward to next year after attending Illuminate x North York?
I am very passionate about the leadership aspect of business and the requirements to be a great leader. I already have some experience but I would be hoping next year to be my own team captain so I could have more experience of setting everything up and leading the presentation.
If you could share one piece of advice about leadership with your readers, something you learned at NHLC, what would it be?
One piece of advice about leadership coming from me would be to treat your workers as people. I believe the worst thing a leader could do is see his employees as just working machines. Leaders need to connect on a personal level with all their employees in order to obtain the best efficiency from them.