Why Extemporaneous Speaking Is the Most Transferable Leadership Contest in FFA
Deep Dives on Specific FFA Contests and What They Teach
Which FFA contest teaches the skills that travel furthest? The honest answer is that nobody has measured it. The title of this article is an argument, not a finding, and it deserves to be tested against the alternatives. This piece lays out the case for extemporaneous speaking as the most transferable leadership contest, the strongest case against and a way for members to decide for themselves. Where FFA has published facts, they are cited. Where this article reasons, it says so.
- Key takeaway: extemporaneous speaking has a strong claim to transferability, but no source ranks FFA contests.
- Test: how many workplace situations does the skill apply to?
The Case For
FFA’s event page says members express themselves on a given agriculture-related topic without prior preparation or rehearsal, in limited time, and judges evaluate speaking, presentation, content and the ability to answer questions. Three features support a transferability argument:
- It matches how much speaking happens. Meetings, client calls and interviews often require an answer on the spot.
- It combines skills. Content knowledge, organization, delivery and handling questions are all judged at once, covering NACE’s communication and critical thinking competencies together.
- It has a built-in progression. FFA’s Tips for Selecting a CDE or LDE quotes a National FFA staff member saying many students progress naturally from Creed Speaking to Prepared and Extemporaneous Public Speaking.
FFA’s improv article adds that improvisation can be trained with exercises, which supports the idea that the skill is learnable and so worth building.
The Case Against
Several other contests have equally strong claims, and the sources support each:
- Parliamentary Procedure. A professional parliamentarian says its skills transfer to any group setting, and the event covers speaking, listening, minutes and decision-making.
- Employment Skills. FFA describes it as simulating the job search and interview, which many people will face directly.
- Agricultural Communications. The 2024 format has teams produce multiple media products and present them, a close match to modern communication jobs.
- Agricultural Issues Forum. It trains research and balanced presentation to public audiences.
There is also a conceptual objection: extemporaneous speaking tests a single person quickly, while many workplaces reward preparation, teamwork and writing. If your target job values careful analysis more than quick talking, another event may transfer better.
How to Decide for Yourself
| Question | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| Will you often speak with little notice? | Extemporaneous speaking fits |
| Will you run or join formal groups? | Parliamentary Procedure fits |
| Are you job hunting soon? | Employment Skills fits |
| Do you want to write, design or produce media? | Agricultural Communications fits |
| Do you want to shape public policy debates? | Agricultural Issues Forum fits |
The table is this site’s suggestion. FFA’s own advice is to begin with your interests and career aspirations and ask your advisor, as in the Tips for Selecting article.
A Fair Conclusion
Extemporaneous speaking is a strong candidate for the most broadly useful single skill, because quick, organized speaking appears in so many settings. But FFA does not rank contests, no study here measures transfer and the best event for a particular member depends on their goals. The defensible claim is that it is among the most transferable, not that it clearly beats every other.
The related article on extemporaneous speaking as a career skill covers the format and practice routine in more detail.
What Real Evidence Would Look Like
To show that one contest transfers best, someone would need to follow groups of former participants into jobs and compare outcomes, while accounting for the fact that people choose events that suit them. FFA has published no such comparison in the sources cited here. Without it, the most responsible approach is to sample: members can try a different event each season and notice which skills show up in school, work and chapter life. Their own experience is not proof, but it is better evidence for their own decision than any slogan.
Honest Limits
This article is an opinion piece grounded in FFA’s descriptions. The event page does not state time limits or topics, and event formats change. No source cited here compares transfer across contests or tracks participants into careers.
Past presidents on this site whose careers show different kinds of communication include Mark Sanborn, a leadership author and speaker; Jan Eberly, an economist who served as the U.S. Treasury’s chief economist; and Seth Derner, an ag teacher and learning company co-founder. Their bios do not say which contests they entered.
Sources
- National FFA Organization: Extemporaneous Public Speaking
- National FFA Organization: Tips for Selecting a CDE or LDE (2023)
- National FFA Organization: Improve Your Public Speaking With Improv (2023)
- National FFA Organization: Employment Skills
- National FFA Organization: The Evolution of Agricultural Communications (2024)
- NACE: What Is Career Readiness?