Future Leaders in the Making
Over the school holiday period, 180 youth aged players from across New South Wales and the ACT completed the AFL Future Leaders Community Program, organised by AFL NSWACT.
The program was broken into two groups, aspiring leaders (13-15 years old) and emerging leaders (16-18 years old), with both groups completing an online module before participating in three zoom conferences. The topics covered included:
– Leadership Style
– Personal Brand
– Leading through Communication were presented
The AFL Future Leaders Program was conducted by the Institute of Sport, who AFL NSWACT engaged as a specialist in this field.
Northern NSW Regional Manager, Simon Smyth, was thrilled with the program.
“At the AFL, we not only want our players to become better players, but we want them to become better people. The AFL Future Leaders Program has enabled us to further develop local role models, who will then go back to their clubs and share this knowledge with their teammates.”
AFL Hunter Central Coast player, Liam Roche, from the Terrigal-Avoca Panthers, was one of the program’s participants, and decided to participate in the program to develop his leadership skills.
“I thought it would be good, as for the last few years I have held leadership roles in both AFL, cricket and representative sports as well.”
Liam found the program invaluable, stating that “I learnt a lot about my personal brand. I also learnt about my leadership qualities like being driven to perform at my best but also be supportive of my teammates and encourage them to do the same.”
Liam thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the AFL Future Leaders Program.
“It was great to meet new people from all over NSW / ACT who had similar aspirations. I feel that everything I have learnt are skills that can be utilised in all areas of my life including school, AFL and my other passion cricket. I highly recommend the program and would like to say thank you to AFL Hunter Central Coast for the opportunity to participate.”
AFL NSWACT facilitated this program as an opportunity to further develop the leadership skills of youth footballers, whilst the football void left by COVID-19 has delayed the start of the 2020 Season.
