Developing Teen Leadership

Not long ago, all it took to have a comfortable career was to do well in high school, get a college degree, and find a nice stable job. But the world is changing rapidly, and many of the nice stable jobs have moved to developing countries. Even a college degree is not the sure investment it once was. Good grades are not enough. But there remain endless opportunities for those with real leadership skills - regardless of career choice. Leadership skills are what you need to manage a team, to stand out as an employee, to start a business and to nail that interview. The skills required to inspire and motivate others, to communicate effectively, to take initiative, and to make and execute plans, are as important as a high grade point average (if not more so). But how do you teach these skills to teenagers? Parents, teachers, coaches, scoutmasters, youth counselors and advisors strive to do so every day - but often have limited training on how best to accomplish that goal. This book fills that gap. This is not an academic or theoretical book on youth leadership. It is a relentlessly practical guide on how to effectively guide teens to become leaders. It covers virtually every topic, issue and skill you need to know - and how to teach it. You'll even learn how to teach teen leaders to teach leadership skills to each other, thus helping them become even stronger leaders.

Based on fifteen years of work with teens and the adults in their lives, Youth Leadership identifies three major stages of adolescent leadership development: awareness, interaction, and mastery. The authors reveal how all adolescents have leadership potential. They outline practical tactics for developing leadership skills through experiences at home, school, community, and work, and - most important - show how adults in these settings can have a positive impact. Josephine van Linden and Carl Fertman provide flexible strategies that can be used with adolescents in any program or setting. They also offer insights on what organizations and communities, as well as individuals, can do to nurture and sustain leadership development. Extensive case examples, diagrams, and charts clarify recommendations and processes.

Youth speaker Tom Thelen explores the unwritten code of character, relationships, and leadership that successful teens use to navigate the storms of life and become great leaders.

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.

Never Too Young to Lead offers faith communities resources and strategies to develop leadership qualities and skills in young adolescents. This manual includes six themes on Christian leadership: leadership styles, listening skills, conflict resolution, trust and responsibility, leadership and discipleship, and planning and strategy. The sessions found in Never Too Young to Lead provide a broad overview of leadership with the aid of scriptural images, and include activities for training youth in essential leadership skills and qualities. The manual also offers strategies for using the sessions to create daylong, weekend, or weeklong training programs for young adolescents.

This book describes eleven essential leadership skills that you can adapt to your youth and your organization. Use these skills to develop hands-on youth leadership development programs.

Every teen can be a leader. That’s because leadership is not just about taking the lead in big ways, but in everyday small things, too. The 21 sessions in this youth leadership curriculum guide teens to explore ethical decision-making, team-building, what it means to be a leader, how to work with others, risk-taking, communication, creative thinking, and more. Choose the sessions that seem best for your class or group, or explore leadership skills through an entire school year. The revised and updated 2nd edition includes the Everyday Leadership Skills & Attitudes (ELSA) inventory, a leadership measurement tool, as well as reproducible handouts, evaluation tools, and exams. Access to digital content includes the reproducible handouts from the book, the student inventory of leadership skills and evaluation tools, and lots of bonus material. Requires use of the student book, Everyday Leadership.