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 Just last week I was asked if I could design a leadership programme for young women aged between 16 and 25. They wanted it to be a leadership programme for life – i.e. one that could be used to encourage young women to think and act like leaders right from the very start of their careers, plus also suitable for whatever career path they chose – including motherhood and time at home with children if that is what they wanted.
So where would you start if you had to create a leader out of a 16 year old? And is the process any different than developing leadership skills in older workers?
So often I find that when developing leadership skills in managers and directors, inevitably what you are tackling are everyday issues at work that they are living and experiencing (or have already lived and experienced). We talk about when teams don’t work, when employees don’t do as asked, of problem solving, of issues around communication and endless miscommunication, the challenges of motivation and of dealing with personality issues/clashes at work etc. In my experience, it is unusual to take a more holistic approach to leadership development - unless you are one of those developing leadership skills away from your usual workplace.
But I suppose first off before I actually write this proposal, I have to decide what they mean by leadership… leading companies, developing leading ideas, leading people, leading trends and ideas in society, setting standards in academic achievement? In theory it could be one or more of these things and no doubt different things will be important for different people.
And once I have grasped what they mean by leadership, my next challenge of course is to develop a programme that engages the younger generation coming through into work. Problem though is that in recent years I have seen companies bending over backwards to accommodate the younger generations, but have at times seen that those efforts are not always appreciated or rewarded with either loyalty or hard work. And many of us have no doubt also experienced occasions when spoon feeding in learning environments has created lazy pupils – constantly relying on others for the answers and focus. So I think what I really want to achieve in my leadership programme for young adults is a balance between modern learning styles/ideas and development techniques that do not encourage laziness.
I will therefore focus on
- Using modern technology and social networking tools
- Innovative and creative exercises
- Participative exercises
- Modules that reflect real life issues
- Opportunities for independent learning
But I will seek to avoid
- Lazy delegates being able to get through by relying on team mates
- Exercises where delegates can get away without doing the research of ground work themselves – don’t want them just to find the answers on Wikipedia
- Making the challenges too easy and the targets too achievable
- A programme that always works to their preferred learning style – and in doing so which makes them inflexible and unable to adapt to different approaches
Anyone else got any thoughts or opinions?
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