School Captains Of Industry

‘IT’S not as if we needed another reason to hate the toadying kids at school who were made head boy or form prefect or chess club captain.

Old Mr Anorak in 1911 - Milk Monitor emeritus

But, if we did, the Telegraph provides it this morning with the news that your boss at work was probably among them.

A survey released today reveals that 95% of top business people had leadership roles at school.

“The head boys, prefects and rugby captains of yesteryear,” the paper says, “are the chief executives and managing directors of today.”

People like Pete Woolaghan, who says the head boy role at St Benedict’s Catholic School in Whitehaven, Cumbria, “taught me how to interact with my peers and how to get them to do what I wanted”.

And Margot King, who was head girl, swimming captain and second-in-charge of the cadet force at Bancroft’s School in Woodford Green, Essex.

“When I was at school,” she says, “I had to persuade people to do extra litter duty or to be a lunch queue monitor.

“It’s not that different from having to persuade someone to stay late to get work finished.”

Except these days she’s probably not as likely to be taken to a corner of the playground and given a wedgie…’

Posted: 5th, January 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink