Can Any Youth Be A Leader?

1. Can Any Youth Be A Leader? A Look at Assets of Youth Leadership Development Karen Henry Joy Jordan Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences University of Florida

2. Goals • Discuss vanLinden and Fertman’s theory of youth leadership development • Stages • Dimensions • Review tools and resources for use • Discuss applications and programming

3. What is Leadership? • Leadership connotes releasing of energy, building, freeing, growing (Peters and Austin, 1985) • Ability to influence the actions of others (Halloran and Benton, 1987) • The ability to motivate • Everyone has leadership potential (Bennis and Nanus, 1985)

4. Transactional vs. Transformational • Transactional • Transformational

5. Why study youth leadership? • Youth are in a number of leadership positions • Little assessment whether the adolescent had the right “tools”

6. Youth Leadership • Developmental process • Three Stages • Five Dimensions

7. Stages of Leadership Development • Stages are sequential and fluid • vanLinden and Fertman’s stages: • Awareness • Interaction • Mastery

8. Five Dimensions • Leadership Information • Leadership Attitude • Communication Skills • Decision-making Skills • Self-management Skills

9. Leadership Information • What adolescents know about leadership and leaders • Accurate information is critical • Adults help teens discriminate information

10. Leadership Attitude • Adolescents’ dispositions, thoughts and feelings towards identifying themselves as leaders • Attitudes are learned • Attitudes are constantly altered

11. Communication Skills • The exchange of thoughts, messages and information • Process of sharing • Includes both verbal and nonverbal communication

12. Decision-Making Skills • Choosing between competing courses of action • Creates a discrepancy between transactional and transformation leaders • Decision-making is a process

13. Self-Management Skills • How adolescents react to and deal with the stress in their lives • Ability to regulate stress • Pertains to issues of autonomy and locus of control

14. Activity Identifying Stages

15. Awareness • Focus on initial awareness of one’s leadership potential and abilities • Youth in this stage: • Do not think of themselves as a leader • Don’t feel capable of being a leader

16. Interaction • Growth in leadership skills occurs and confidence solidifies through interaction • Youth in this stage: • Have a limited definition of leadership • Believe that the leader is “in charge” • Need adult support and guidance

17. Mastery • The focus is mastery of leadership skills in specific areas and activities in life • Youth in this stage: • Believe that anyone can be a leader • Are aware of his/her own strengths and weaknesses as a leader

18. Assessment • A research study was conducted in 2000 • Reliable “measures or indicators” of these three stages of leadership • Relationship between their stage of development, and their leadership development, locus of control and type of leadership experiences

19. Findings • Youth fell into the three distinct stages • Different levels of experiences were associated with each of the three stages

20. Application-- Moving youth through the stages • The importance of experiences • The role of adults (support) • Roles in youth and community organizations (opportunities)

21. Experiences for Youth • Knowledge • Skills • Practice

22. Support-- The Role of Adults • Mentoring/Guidance • Resources • Role models

23. Opportunities—Roles in Youth and Community Organizations • Allow youth the means to develop leadership skills through practice • Make it meaningful!

24. Workshop in review • vanLinden and Fertman’s theory of youth leadership development • Applications • Resources for Programming