Fight of the Week Friday - The Tiny CEO
Welcome to Fight of the Week Friday! Every Friday, we dive into the dramatic, hilarious, and sometimes downright ridiculous battles that unfold in everyday life. From ballet studios to school hallways, no fight is too small to teach us something big.
The Tiny CEO: Five Examples of Top-Level Bossiness
This week's Fight
Friday stars little Allegro.
Now, every ballet
teacher has at least one student who likes being in charge. But Allegro doesn't
simply like being in charge.
She believes being
in charge is her natural state of existence.
And unfortunately,
I was the one who had to fight.
Fight to keep my
patience.
✨Example 1
The week started
with Allegro deciding she required my complete and undivided attention.
And by complete
attention, I mean standing directly in front of me, calling my name, and
tugging on my arm while I was trying to teach.
"Miss Zoraya."
Tug.
"Miss Zoraya."
Tug.
"Miss Zoraya."
Tug.
When i asked if anything was wrong, she shrugged and said she thought she wanted to ask me something, but she forgot.
This pattern repeated two more times.
It takes quite a
lot for my patience to wear thin, but at that moment Allegro was skating on
paper-thin ice.
Instead of losing
my patience, I did the next best thing.
I ignored her.
As cruel as that
sounds, it's often the only thing you can do.
Eventually she
moved on.
Unfortunately, she
moved on to bossing other people instead.
✨Example 2
At the end of
class, we reached one of the students' favourite activities: creating their own
dance.
Usually this
results in a wonderful burst of creativity.
Unless, of course,
your bossiest student decides everyone should perform a dance consisting
entirely of instructions issued by her.
Allegro immediately
took charge.
"Stand
there."
"No, not
there."
"Do
this."
"No, like
THIS."
The other students
were not impressed.
They complained.
They argued.
And then...
They did exactly
what she told them to do.
I genuinely don't
know whether I should feel respect or fear.
✨Example 3
By the second
lesson of the week, Allegro's ambitions had grown.
Before I could even
organise the students into their lines, she had begun doing it herself.
Now, I'm not a
control freak.
But nobody places
my lines for me.
Nobody.
I watched as she
confidently moved students from one side to the other.
Then she changed her mind.
Then she adjusted a
few more students.
At this point I was
apparently no longer the teacher.
I was simply
observing Allegro's management style.
✨Example 4
Eventually, one of
the other students gathered enough courage to challenge our tiny boss.
She told Allegro to
stop moving everyone around.
Reasonable request.
Unfortunately,
Allegro did not agree.
Within seconds she
burst into tears.
Now, you know
you've spent too much time around children when you've developed the ability to
distinguish real tears from fake tears.
And these were
theatrical tears.
Professional-level
theatrical tears.
Oscar-worthy tears.
The kind of tears
that make you think:
I knew exactly what
was happening.
Allegro was
perfectly happy telling everyone else what to do.
Being told what to
do herself, however, was unacceptable.
✨Example 5
Just when I thought
the week couldn't get any more ridiculous, a student came to me crying because
Allegro wouldn't let her enter a fort.
(For context, this
was the fort from the previous Safety Pin Limit post, the fort was creating using safety pins and the stage wings.)
Naturally, I went
to investigate.
What I discovered
was not a fort.
It was a small
organisation.
First of all, the
fort had an age restriction.
Some students were
allowed in.
Others were not.
Secondly, Allegro
had appointed a bouncer.
An actual bouncer.
And somehow she had
convinced an older student to do the job.
Thirdly, and
perhaps most impressively, the bouncer had been paid in sweets.
When I entered the
fort, I felt like I had wandered into a scene from The Godfather.
There was security.
There were
admission requirements.
There looked to be a very serious meeting going on.
All she was missing was a tiny clipboard and a cat sitting on her lap.
I, unfortunately, had removed the fort
before Allegro could start charging membership fees.
Looking back, the
signs were obvious.
Throughout one
single week Allegro had:
- Demanded the teacher's undivided
attention.
- Directed the other students.
- Reorganised the class.
- Reacted dramatically to criticism.
- Established a private fort with admission policies and hired security.
And I
realised something important.
Allegro isn't
bossy.
She's simply a CEO
who hasn't discovered business school yet.
- Leadership and bossiness often look very similar when you're five.
- Some children don't wait for responsibility. They simply appoint themselves.
- The bossiest child in the room usually dislikes being bossed around.
- Ignoring attention-seeking behaviour is often more effective than arguing with it.
- Future CEOs apparently begin their careers in classrooms.
Thanks for joining me in this week’s ballet battlefield. Lesson learned? Maybe. Entertainment guaranteed? Always.
💬Have you ever met a child who seemed destined to become a CEO before they could even tie their own shoes?
👊 Revisit last week’s fight
The Great Scaredy Cat Crisis
Today we open our history textbooks to examine the dispute between Balancé of the North and Entrechat of the South, a great alliance that was almost lost in conflict.
What began as a peaceful afternoon quickly descended into one of the shortest yet significant conflicts in ballet history.
Read the Previous Fight
Comments
Post a Comment