Underestimated Heiress

CHAPTER 5 - First leadership meeting

Now, in the room was the new leadership team, Colin spoke as he addressed his new team, "Take 5 min to settle down and we will start with our agenda for the meeting."

While everyone was settling down they were curious to find out what Colin and Jess had planned. Whereas, Colin and Jess were discussing a few things among themselves in a low and professional tone.

After 5 min, Colin said enthusiastically, "Welcome everyone to our 1st leadership meeting. We have limited time to discuss a few important points, so I will skip the small talk and jump straight to the point. We all have the same goal that we want to achieve, 1st, we all want to work towards improvement in certain areas in our school, in such a way that it could be highlighted in our achievements. I am hoping everyone came prepared with their area of interests. 2nd, We want to give better platforms to our colleagues and juniors, so that they forever remember us. And 3rd we want to create opportunities for ourselves for a better future." Everyone was surprised by how straight forward Colin was, but he spoke their thoughts out loud. Colin continued, "All that we discuss here is and will be confidential, that's the most important rule of this team, that's why I want you all to be honest as we will not have enough time to build relationships and trust. I want us to trust each other completely. If anyone breaks this trust, that person will be punished for being invisible until the end. I will personally make sure that the person who breaks the team's trust will not be part of the meetings and will not get any platforms. We will make mistakes, but as soon as you know you made a mistake, I want you to call a team meeting and let everyone know about it. The team will support you like your own limbs, yes, I want that much coordination among us. People will see us as separate individuals, but we should be seen as 1 entity. When you enter this room, leave your personal grudges and ego outside the room. We will cover for each other's weaknesses by our strengths. After today, I will not waste another breath to discuss or highlight any of these things, I will only take actions."

While everyone was still listening carefully, they all silently agreed to this, Colin continued, "Ofcourse, I have already discussed this with Jess and we are on the same page, if there are no objections, then I will hand it over to Jess to continue our today's agenda."

No one had any objections to what Colin said, but they all thought that Colin was a strict and dominant leader. Jess stood up, with her calm expression she said while passing sticky notes and pens across the table, "Let's write down our thoughts on these sticky notes, you can take each color for each categories, your strengths, your weakness, what opportunities you want for yourself that can help you, what areas in school you would like to improve, how do you want to help your juniors. Last but not the least, the red color sticky notes is for something that you would like to add on top of what Colin said. We have 15 minutes, please use this time wisely."

While the team got busy writing the things, Jess opened up her laptop and started documenting each sticky note as they were passed on by the team. This room still didn't belong to them, even though they had the white board here, they cannot use it as they had restricted access to the room's accessories until next year. While Jess was documenting, Colin was walking to each team member to discuss their thoughts and then shared a few pointers with Jess so that she can give her opinion and add them to the list if required.

After around 15 minutes, they had everything they needed for next year on Jess's laptop. There was 1 red note, Jess read it out loud, "We have 1 red note, let's discuss this, it says, 'Team building activities'. I am up for it but when should we do it? Looking at the plans I think we will be very busy."

Richa said, "I was thinking we can go camping during the annual break. That will help us understand each other and will improve our tuning."

Everyone agreed, but Jess said, "I might not be able to join you guys but you all go ahead."

Richa asked,"Come'on Jess, why can't you come? It will be a good outing for our team."

Jess replied, "It is really a good idea, but I have to help my parents on the farm. They plan everything a year ahead so they expect me to be there to help them."

Everyone knew that Jess got a scholarship that's why she could afford this private school, she worked part time to earn some allowance for herself. It was easy to assume that her parents were not rich but they didn't know that they were farmers and lived in the countryside. But there is a very interesting phrase, 'don't judge the book by its covers'. It's human nature to assume and act, so all of them pitied Jess as they imagined Jess working hard on the farm.

Richa didn't continue this topic, she didn't want to put Jess in a spot. She can come up with a different plan, there are still 15 days until the annual break starts.

It was time to end the meeting, while most of them were still thinking about Jess, Jess and Colin had gone through all the listed work that they have to do next year. They combined a few topics, and eliminated a couple due to its overlapping. Then they shared their thoughts with the team. Everyone was supposed to come up with different plans to execute and achieve all the tasks. They will present their plan at the beginning of the year, in their first meeting after the annual break. The most voted plans will be put to motion. This was a task for all the captains, whereas presidents and vice presidents were supposed to come up with a plan to get funding for next year. They will need different strategies to achieve funding in different industries. This was a difficult task and everything depended on this.

Colin said, "The homework sounds very difficult, we will be doing this along with our academics. It's very important that we don't fall behind in our academics." After a small pause and a sigh, Colin said, "It's not easy to be a leader, and we will be leaders of the school starting next year. We will be tired and exhausted, there will be times where we will feel like giving up, that moment I want you all to remember what I am saying now. 'It is hard to achieve good things, one of the good things that we have achieved is this leadership team. It was hard but worth it, similarly being a leader will be hard but it will be worth it.' Always remember guys none of us is doing this alone, we are 10 of them, and it's a huge number as we are the best of them, if we can't do it then no one can and we don't want anyone to tell us that there is anything in this world that our school can't do. Let's try to give our best."

Colin looked at Jess and continued, "Please send everyone the list and their action items. For camping plans, I will leave it with Richa to organize something and send everyone an invite with tentative dates including Jess. I will see to it that everyone accepts the invite." Colin said with a double meaning. He was going to make sure that Jess joins them on this camping trip. Everyone looked happy while they left the meeting room. Jess looked at Colin, she thought Colin was a dominating leader and had a king-like presence. She only knew one man with a personality similar to Colin, that was her father.

He looked like he was born to be a leader, but it was too soon to say that for anyone. They were all a bunch of high school kids, they had enough time to turn around their lives. For example, Nick had changed and followed the plan Jess shared with him. He even tried a bit extra and also changed a few things as his interests changed. He also planned to turn his life around and plan for his future. Maddy was still very cunning and calculative, she understood that she won't get much help from Richa in next year as she will be busy, so she started befriending some other rich girls to suck them out for their tutor's notes and luxury items. Her fate was still uncertain, if she learned her lessons on time and started working hard she might have a future.