Practical Ways For Children To Build Leadership Skills
Photo by Anna Samoylova on Unsplash
You’ve heard the phrase, leaders are born, not made. However, many professionals who teach and research about leadership in the workplace tend to disagree. They believe that leaders can very well be made by developing the essential skills needed for leadership.
So why is it important to develop leadership in our children? Having leadership skills helps children solve problems with creativity, instills confidence, and gives them tools to work collaboratively. Leadership doesn’t always mean your child is in the limelight or they are the loudest one in the room. It means they have the ability to guide others by the way they conduct themselves.
For children, leadership skills are a tremendous aid in social-emotional development. These are lifelong skills that they will use in school and carry with them into adulthood. The workplace has a huge emphasis on leadership skills, especially when it comes to measuring success.
The Center for Creative Leadership defines the “Fundamental 4” as key leadership skills that every person should have: self-awareness, communication, influence, and learning agility.
When we break down these key leadership skills, they are all rooted in social-emotional skills or “soft skills”, as employers like to call it. Skills like empathy, selflessness, flexibility, and humility do not typically come easily for most people. At some point in time, adults who embody these core leadership skills had to acquire them, but it takes time. What better way than to start instilling these character traits in children while they’re young? With intention and exposure, we can provide a platform for learning leadership skills for children and teenagers.
The future of leadership will revolve around our capacities to build emotional intelligence within ourselves as leaders, and those whose lives we touch. - Forbes Coaches Council
All children have the potential to become leaders. This lifelong process is one that parents can start now. Let’s help prepare the next generation to make this world a better place! Here are some practical ways to help children build leadership skills:
Take on responsibilities at home
We know, we know, everyone already does chores–and most kids groan when it’s their turn to wash the dishes or take out the trash. So how do we turn household chores into a lesson on leadership? Put the focus more on the importance of the role and not the chore itself. If your child disdains doing the dishes, point out to them how important the family dish washer is, because without them meals would not be eaten on time and the kitchen would be a mess. Help them see the impact they are making for the rest of the family by completing this task. Sometimes a little reminder helps children (even teenagers) make a connection to how they play a vital role in the family.
Next, is to give meaningful responsibilities. When children feel like they are playing an important role in the family, they are more prone to take ownership. Special jobs like praying at meal times or making breakfast on the weekends go beyond the typical chores that children do. High school teens can be given more advanced responsibilities that peak their interests, like planning an itinerary for the next family vacation.
Just like children are assigned a classroom job at school, these are “jobs” for the home. These meaningful responsibilities can be a bit more challenging or require more time on the child’s part. But this way they have space to grow and master their skills well as build autonomy over time.
Join an organized team/group
Collaboration is a vital skill amongst leaders. However, we don’t come out of the womb knowing how to negotiate, reason, sacrifice, and support those around us–it’s a skill that gets better with experience. The best way to gain experience in this skill is to have children immerse themselves in group settings where they have a common goal they are working towards.
Having kids join an organized sports team, an academic group or social group gives them exposure to build this skill by working with others. We know not all children are interested in team sports–some may not be fans of the competitive nature or lean towards other extracurriculars. There are plenty of non-sports related groups that are also team oriented. Groups like orchestra, band, choir, dance, or clubs like debate team, math club, or social groups that plan activities and volunteer in the community are all ways for students to practice team building skills. It’s important for children and teens to experience the strength in numbers when you accomplish something with a team. Like the saying goes, “there’s no ‘I’ in team”–this statement embodies the value of humility and selflessness in teamwork. In practicing collaboration, kids build up the skill in recognizing the needs of others, as well as valuing their teammates and their contributions to the overall success of the team.
Volunteer or start a business
Volunteering or doing paid jobs can teach children the importance of serving others. Children, especially those that are younger, tend to be more focused inward at their own needs and/or the needs within their own home. Volunteering creates an opportunity for them to branch outward and focus on the needs of others. It expands their thinking and changes their perspective on the world that’s going on outside of their homes. Many local non-profit organizations have volunteer opportunities for middle school or high school students, such as churches, animal shelters, or soup kitchens. The town I live in has a Facebook group where a few high school students posted free labor to help any elderly needing assistance with lifting heavy items or yard work. These students received lots of comments from community members who needed their help, and so many more that were rooting these kids on for their initiative and kindness. Kids can even turn a problem in the community into a passion project where they commit to seeing through a goal that gives back to the community.
Paid work also builds leadership skills and is suitable for older children or teens. Similar to volunteering, students can create paid jobs by seeing and meeting a need in their community–this could be as simple as walking dogs for busy neighbors in the community or offering tutoring lessons to the kid next door. Taking the initiative to learn new skills and meet the needs of others helps practice learning agility. Learning agility is said to be a skillset of the future, where leaders who have this skill are able to adapt to the changing patterns of the world and in the workplace and stay ahead of the curve. Paid jobs also offer an extra layer of accountability and money management skills that give kids a taste of the responsibilities that working adults have.
These practical opportunities are just some of the many ways that help build leadership skills in kids and teens. Through these activities and exchanges, young people can build up lifelong skills they can use in both their personal and professional lives–furthermore, skills they can use to make positive impacts within their own families and throughout the world.
