Mondays with Mike: Developing the Leaders Who Shape Our School
PCA Families,
At PCA, a leadership title is only the beginning.
Our prefects, Student Life Council members, small-group leaders, captains, and class officers are entrusted with something more significant than a position. They are given real responsibility for people, projects, and the culture around them—and then surrounded by adults who help them learn to carry that responsibility well.
In this week’s Mondays with Mike, I’m joined by Mrs. Ellen Sporko, our Director of Leadership, and student leaders Anna and Noah for a candid conversation about what leadership actually asks of them: handling disagreement, learning to lead themselves, building unity, receiving guidance, serving peers, and continuing to grow in humility and faith.
What encouraged me most is that they do not describe leadership as having arrived. They describe it as a journey of responsibility, service, correction, courage, and growth.
Listen: Developing the Leaders Who Shape Our School ( 18 Minutes)
Key Takeaways
- Leadership begins with responsibility, not a title. Students help shepherd peers, carry significant projects from vision through handoff, and shape whether others feel seen, welcomed, and cared for.
- Real leadership includes friction. Our students speak honestly about negativity, disagreement, listening to concerns, compromise, and the challenge of leading themselves before they can lead others well.
- Student leaders help shape culture. They describe growing unity, stronger buy-in, and a greater sense of joy and belonging among their peers.
- Leaders still need leaders. Mentors, teachers, and parents challenge, ground, encourage, and point students back to Scripture while still allowing them to make real decisions.
- Love should drive leadership. Ellen captures the heart of what we hope to form: “We are students who love our school and therefore we lead.” Leadership grows out of love for neighbor rather than merely completing tasks.
- The goal is growth, not a finished product. The students speak openly about humility and about leadership experiences that can “grow me, but not fix me.” They expect to keep becoming better leaders long after this year ends.
Parents, this conversation reminded me why we invest intentionally in developing student leaders.
We are not simply trying to give a few students positions or opportunities to be visible. We are entrusting young men and women with real responsibility—and then helping them learn to carry it with courage, humility, judgment, love, and grace.
That matters beyond the individual leader. Their choices affect their classmates. Their willingness to serve helps build unity. Their courage can invite others in. And the culture they help shape becomes part of the experience of your children—our students.
They are also still learning. They will make mistakes. They will need correction, encouragement, wise adults, faithful friends, and plenty of grace. That is part of leader development too.
So I would ask you to pray for our student leaders: that the Lord would give them wisdom, humility, courage, and a growing love for those they have been entrusted to serve.
And pray that, through them and through all of us, PCA continues to become a community where people are known, welcomed, challenged, loved, and pointed toward Christ.
I’ll see you on campus soon.
With gratitude,
Mike Runey
Head of School
Portsmouth Christian Academy
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