Wednesday 26 November 2008

Leadership

I haven’t done a blog on a sporting topic for a little while but this week my inspiration from this piece comes from the world of sport. If you like your football you will be able to guess what I am going to be talking about. I am a big fan of Arsenal Football Club and they have been all over the back pages this week following their Captain William Gallas making claims and statements to the press about trouble behind the scenes at the club. So this week it is all about Leadership.

In this world we will always need good leaders and leadership qualities are great to have. Now what does being a leader actually mean? Is a leadership someone who shouts the loudest and can get people to do things? Is a leader someone who leads by his actions? And should leaders speak out and act out on things which could have a detrimental affect on the group they lead?

To me a leader is someone who is considered but someone who can when it comes to crunch draw on their own experience and feelings to make a decision on how to lead. The important thing not to be when being a leader is a loose cannon. When some people think of a leader they think of someone who doesn’t bow down to anyone and leads based on their own opinions. A loose cannon is what William Gallas ended up being which is not the way to lead.

As a leader you need to put the group of people you lead before yourself and as a leader the way you act and behave will be seen as a direct reflection of your group by many people looking in. To be a leader you need to have the respect and the backing of your group without those two things even if you have the title of a leader you are not a real leader in the true sense of the word.

Even if you don’t want to a be leader when you grow up you never know when your leadership skills could be called in to question and when you will need other people to help you or do things for you so you always need to keep your leadership skills sharp. So when you are a leader never make a rash decision, always think before you act and always put the group first before yourself.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Accomplishments and recognition

We all like winning awards, trophies and recognition. Whether it’s winning the cup with your football team or being top of the class we all like to see a reward for our hard work. In a world which if you believe the press has an increasing amount of youth related crime happening it seems that more organisations are creating awards to reward young people doing great things in society whilst trying to get some good publicity for young people.

My question this week is this: Should we be rewarding young people for everything that they do? And if we do this are we just creating a culture of young people who will just expect to get an award for everything they do and then only do things if they get an award for it.

For me young people need to be empowered to achieve great things for their own personal satisfaction and not for an award. Young people should want to achieve in what they are doing first then if an award comes up it is a bonus. Someone shouldn’t be judged by how many awards they have won they should be judged by how good they are at something.

For me I want to win awards so I can show others what can be achieved through hard work as if you keep working hard at something and always want to get better at it somewhere down the line you will get the recognition for it.

So to sum up I am all for awards and recognising the efforts of young people as long as it doesn’t breed a culture of award hungry young people who lose focus on the long term goals they are trying to achieve in life.

What do you think? Do you like getting awards? Is that what motivates you? We want to know and you can share your views by joining in our topic of the week:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=605


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Contracts - Are they worth signing?

Now many of us are aware of the lengthy and sometimes unfair contracts that music acts are signed to by record labels but nobody has really thought about contracts on the X-Factor. On the show each finalist is tied down to a contract which states that they can’t release any music until after the winner has released there’s and that they will have to take part in the X-Factor tour among countless other things I’m sure.

Scott allegedly wants out of his contract so that he can start releasing music now and not be restrained by the terms of releasing music on his contract. He obviously believes that his best chance of chart success is getting something out now before the X-Factor buzz dies down. If successful he would set a president and it would get other acts wanting to do the same so I a sure if he did attempt this it would be unsuccessful.

Ok the X-Factor contract may be restrictive but without it Scott wouldn’t have gotten on TV and had all the media buzz behind him so even if he does have to wait he still has a higher chance of success than if he hadn’t been on the show. The X-Factor tour is also great PR as he gets to perform to thousands of people up and down the country at the same getting paid a nice amount for doing so which without his contract he wouldn’t get the chance to do.

I think if this story is true then it is just another attempt to get media hype for being the first person to try this. I’m sure if Scott was still on the show he wouldn’t want to be released from his contract. Personally I think it is worth signing a contract like that for the opportunities that show can supply but it does bring back in to the spotlight the importance of reading a contract and thinking about the outcomes before signing one.

In this week’s topic of the week we want to know if you think contracts are unfair on the talent? Are the big record labels and TV shows wrong to tie people in to contracts> We want to know your thoughts. And you can share your thoughts by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=598



Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com