Tag Archives: Capstone

Blog Post #3 – Capstone Essay, Answering my Main Inquiry question, and Final Presentation (Part 1 of 2)

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My Capstone Essay and my project is on leadership. My main inquiry question is: “What are the most common traits in highly effective leaders?”

Working on my Capstone Essay was a long process full of drafting, editing, and revising. But in the end, it not only was essential to the making of the script for my final presentation, but it also helped me improve on my writing skills. My Capstone Essay was also really essential towards my project and provided me with a lot of helpful information.

Back to my main inquiry question. “What are the most common traits in highly effective leaders?” I sent out a lot of emails to Fortune 500 CEOs, just a few that replied including:

  • Bob Iger from Disney
  • Bernhard Kuhnt from BMW
  • Jamie Dimon from Chase
  • Michael Dell from Dell

I analyzed responses from dozens of CEOs, and then I have concluded 3 key traits. Those 3 key traits are:

Authenticity, Perseverance, and Optimism.

A lot of my research from books about leadership, and articles on leadership also proved those 3 key traits as very important. Of course, not everybody just said authenticity, perseverance, and optimism. They usually sometimes showed words related to that word. Like for authenticity, there was honesty and truthfulness. For perseverance, there was tenacity, grit, resilience, and determination. And lastly, for optimism, there was positive, cheerfulness, and confidence. It is a long process, but in my opinion, in the end, it is worth it!

Capstone, in my opinion, is a very exciting, entertaining, interesting, and fun topic! I can’t wait to complete the last steps of this project!

Blog Post #2, The Interview

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I really enjoyed conducting my interviews. They are really important to the structure and research of my topic and/or project. It will be important because I am getting advice and talking to people that are experienced.

I decided that since my project is on leadership, I would interview 2 leaders. I ended up with two interviewees: Jane Veron, the Mayor of Scarsdale and the CEO of The Acceleration Project, and Darren Walker, the President of the Ford Foundation. Jane Veron is the Mayor of Scarsdale, and a CEO, so she would know things about leadership. Darren Walker is the President of the Ford Foundation, so he will also know things about leadership. 

It was pretty easy to find some people to interview because for one, Jane Veron was just elected, and she sent out her email to everybody just in case they had questions for her. I found out that she was also a CEO, so we arranged a Zoom meeting. For two, Darren Walker was also pretty easy because my mom works at the Ford Foundation, so we arranged a Zoom meeting. 

The interview did go as expected, but for the Zoom Meeting with the Mayor, we went 15 minutes past the scheduled time. They were both really nice, and did give sort of the same advice. They however, had 2 very different personalities and a sense of achieving things. Mrs. Veron is a nice person, but she believes in getting things done quickly and efficiently. Mr. Walker, on the other hand, believes in being nice to everyone, be authentic, treat others the way you want to be treated, and also, get things done. (They were the same in some ways, but different in more ways.) 

I really liked conducting my interviews. They were fun, but also inspirational. I love the Capstone project, and I can’t wait to do more!

Capstone – Task Definition

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Capstone is a special project that all 5th Graders like me do at the end of the school year. It is the last big project that we will have at Heathcote before we move on to the SMS (Scarsdale Middle School). It is special because you get to choose what you want to learn about. No one tells you what to do or what question to pick or learn about. You then research it on your own and make either a WeVideo, Ignite, etc.

Some of the first steps of Capstone, is Task Definition. That’s when you choose the question that you want to learn about. My topic is: “Is there a common leadership trait among 21st century leaders and how have they used this trait to improve the world?” I was interested in this topic because I think that it will be good future references.

My sub questions are:

  1. What are 3 essential qualities that define a leader?
  2. Are a lot of traits the same for some leaders? Different?
  3. Do leaders with better traits accomplish more in the world?
  4. What are 3 big world leaders that everybody knows about? Why do they stand out?

I am so excited to do the rest of my Capstone project!