As part of my Certificate II in Business class, we were offered to mentor a Year 6 student in starting up a business initiative and develop their business as part of the ‘Business Buddies’ program. Reflecting on the program, it has significantly improved my capability of leadership in various ways.

My partner and I were both new to the idea of mentoring and were unsure as to how we would go about it due to the responsibility that is placed on us to be reliable role models. But, regardless, we took the initiative and started working with the student on creating products, marketing and preparing for the first market. I demonstrated my leadership capabilities here because, although I was unsure of my qualification or the steps in the process, I still stepped up to fill the required position.

The second instance where the program displayed my leadership was regarding the meetings we would have as a team weekly or fortnightly. Considering I am working with a Year 6, I was very conscious that active efforts would have to be made to so we sent reminder emails, Teams messages and visited her class to remind her of a meeting we would have later in the day. This demonstrated my ability to recognise the aspect of leadership that means to communicate effectively and be considerate of an individual’s needs.

The ‘Business Buddies’ program has and still continues to develop a range of my capabilities for which I am very grateful. I consider this to be an initiative that more students should undertake due to the various aspects of business and teamwork it has proved to contain. Leadership is a capability that employs many others within, but I recognise that it would be my most improved over this program.