[July 21, 2016] In Part 1 of this three-part series on teaching children leadership, I laid out some of the more important things that kids (or anyone) should “never” do.1 The subject matter makes it relatively easy for kids to learn leadership and apply those skills throughout their entire lifetimes. Today, I’ll address key opportunities any program to teach leadership to children should include.
After my posting yesterday of Part 1, several readers emailed me to ask, “What does teaching children leadership skills have to do with being a senior leaders?” I believe, first of all, that senior leaders have a moral obligation to do whatever they can to improve the lives of others and that will be accomplished by teaching leadership. Second, the average person has poor leadership skills and by helping teaching, senior leaders are ultimately helping their organizations when those kids seek employment in adulthood.
Another important note; the person teaching leadership should be an accomplished leader themselves. Furthermore, that person should do more than teach but also coach and mentor the children in their care. This means a lifetime commitment when those children later come back for advice or to bounce ideas off the teacher/leader. That is why a leader cannot afford a large number of children to teach in this respect. For me, I typically have about 5 or 6 kids at any one time that are moving through my in-house leader program.
Listed below are some of the key opportunities that I provide for the children. These are much more difficult because each requires hands-on training and, in some cases, a high level of coordination and use of my leader network. Challenges include travel, costs, and time but the payoff is more than worthwhile. The opportunities are:
- Seeing leaders in action: Nothing is more powerful that seeing leaders who lead by example. For children it doesn’t mean seeing a company CEO going about business but often a younger team leader who has the passion for excellence in their job. Seeing a variety of younger adults with positive attitudes accomplishing something important leaves a lasting impression.
- Learning to understand someone else’s point of view: I usually use games that involve simple problem solving. One simple method is to get children to provide directions for someone trying to find them in the mall or some other place. This builds on “awareness” in others; situational, personal, and solution awareness.
- Accomplishing tasks with standards: This means understanding priorities and why we have them. Children are rarely asked what’s important to them. And even less common is it followed by an adult discussion that helps guide them toward verbalizing about people in their lives who having meaning for the child and what their interests are.
- Being part of a team that solves a problem: Showing the power of teamwork is an easy intellectual and practical pursuit. The way to be successful with children is repetition where they can “see” the results of their team and other teams. One plus one means more than two; when it involves a team.
- Pursuing things that interest them: Kids are highly susceptible to fads and trends; all of which are fast moving. For a teacher to drill down to those things that are lasting is a bit more difficult than finding out what their interests are today. But the results are worthwhile.
Learning is, of course, a lifelong process and the value of leadership is enormously helpful for any person regardless of their life’s pursuit. When teaching, mentoring, and coaching children on leadership and the skills involved, everyone wins.
Part 3 of this series on teaching children leadership will also be about what they can learn that will have the most immediate positive impact on their lives. It also means practice, practice, and more practice.
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