Promoting Leadership in Young Adults

Organizations thrive on effective leadership and suffer in numerous ways from poor leadership. “Leadership is seen as a process by which one individual influences another toward the attainment of group or organizational goals.” (Merriam- Webster). Leaders are responsible for projecting the vision and values of an organization and for making decisions used good judgment that will ultimately benefit the entire organization. It is the action of leading a group of people, an organization, and/ or through a social influence process, which involves voluntary action on the part of followers and it is always purposeful and goal-oriented. Leadership deals with influence and is different from management, which includes planning, organizing, staffing, directing and/ or controlling. There are 6 known benefits of leadership training, increase productivity, retain people, nurture future leaders, increase employment engagement, implement an effective leadership style, and make better decisions.

There is also another approach to leadership suggesting that people are born with certain characteristics. To be a great leader you must understand the 6 benefits of leadership training, which includes Increasing Productivity. Meaning you must understand people not just physically but emotionally, “in his book The New Leaders, Daniel Goleman states that emotional intelligence is critical to the success of a leader. Emotional intelligence involves being smart about emotions and using empathy effectively to empower and engage employees. Leadership training that encompasses emotional intelligence can hone these emotional skills in your people managers and leaders.” (Courtney, 2015). When retaining to people it’s none the less saying that, “75% of people voluntarily leaving jobs don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses! That’s right, employees leave ineffective leaders. By investing in leadership training, you can retain your people and reduce costly recruitment expenses.” (Courtney, 2015). By not having the leader that is training or mentoring the youth not be that ‘manager’ everyone wants to be there won’t be any future leaders of the upcoming generation. Due to the fact the young adults would get discouraged in continuing the tradition of helping their community.

But by being that leader it allows you to nurture future leaders which is benefit number 3, by nurturing future leaders you can, “be strategic about developing and nurturing future leaders. Without strategy, leadership roles are often given to the most forward candidates with dominant personalities.

Quality leadership is a combination of the right qualities and the right training.” You can identify which mentee needs help on what and can set certain goals for the group or just one individual. Training a leader in the correct way can also benefit in increasing work employment engagements, “We all like to know how we are progressing in our roles, receiving praise when it is well-earned and constructive feedback as necessary. In fact, 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week compared to only 18% of those with low engagement” (Courtney, 2015). Benefit number 5 states Implementing an Effective Leadership which means to “Assist in implementing the most appropriate leadership style for your organization and the work you do. There are several leadership styles, all with their own advantages and disadvantages. Leadership training can also help individual leaders develop their own personal leadership style that their team members will best respond to.” (Courtney, 2015). The final benefit includes “Making Better Decisions”, you might ask ‘how can making better decisions benefit in leadership?’ well, “leaders functioning at a high level of emotional intelligence have the perspective to make informed, intelligent business decisions. For that reason alone, you can consider your leadership training investment returned.” (Courtney, 2015). Leadership is defined as the ability to “Empower followers” (Conger, 2017), which is through guidance example, and encouragement.

Many leaders vary in style from bold and transform the community by instilling a vision to being humble and inspiring their community to let their imagination run loose. Either way being a good leader is to ensure your community has all of their needs fulfilling. A positive leader who has their primary goal set on concerning themselves with the community; instead, of their own achievements and what they will gain will be a community that succeeds. Leadership dates back history, and the United States of America has recognized a lot of leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks; all of those great influencers consist of possessing the characteristic traits of leadership. The theory for character traits connecting to leadership assumes that people are born as leaders or not as leaders because the traits are naturally part of a person’s personality. Most possess high levels of self-control, great leaders are emotionally intelligent, patient and calm under pressure. They see no point in overreacting or allowing their emotions to dictate their words or actions.

Meaning to them not every action requires a reaction and knowing how to handle said situation and become that role model for even younger children can follow when growing up. Being a better follower doesn’t out right mean follow your mentors’ or the person you look up to footsteps on becoming a leader and soon to be leading the community or one person. It means, “if a follower, subordinate, employee, etc., understands leadership “theory,” then when he sees an individual engage in a certain behavior, he better understands what and why something is happening and has some insight into how to best respond, react, and interact with that individual to be most effective” (Brown, 2018). This process will always help in the event a young adult is practicing to become said leader in the community, and it will also benefit the community because it will have that person to pass down said process from generation to generation. The behavior approach refocuses the interest from the traits to the leaders’ behavior. Leaders’ behavior becomes more important than their physical, mental or emotional traits. In other words, the benefit lies in not understanding how to lead, but in understanding how to work with a leader. For example, when leaders demonstrate people-oriented behaviors, employees tend to be more satisfied and react more positively; however, when leaders are task-oriented, productivity tends to be a bit higher. So having that task-orientated trait can and will come in handy when dealing with leadership. When you think of leadership, the ideas of power, authority, and influence may come to mind. You may think of the actions of effective leaders in accomplishing important goals.

You may think of people who have been recognized for their leadership capabilities. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, defined leadership as “The ability to decide what is to be done, and then to get others to want to do it.” Leadership can be defined as the ability of an individual to influence the thoughts, attitudes, and behavior of others. It is the process by which others are motivated to contribute to the success of the groups of which they are members. Leaders set a direction for their followers and help them to focus their energies on achieving their goals. Theorists have developed many theories about leadership, and although none of the theories completely explains everything about leadership, each has received some scientific support. Some of the theories are based on the idea that there are ‘born leaders’ with particular traits that contribute to their ability to lead.

Other theories suggest that leadership consists of specific skills and behaviors. Some theories take a contingency approach that suggests that a leader’s effectiveness depends on the situation requiring leadership.

Still other theories examine the relationship between the leader and his or her followers as the key to understanding leadership. When, promoting leadership in young adults not only does it benefit them it benefits the community because raising leaders isn’t easy but in the long run they can build their community and keep it stable. “The success of leadership training always depends on how it is done. Think back to the best manager you’ve ever had. I’m sure you can remember the person because good leaders are memorable… and excellent leaders are unforgettable.” Being the one that remembers the good manager/boss impacts your brain mentally without you even knowing. Their thought process of leadership, their character traits that they were born with was imbedded into your subconscious because you were co-workers and they trained you. Working with your community has different effects of people in many ways; therefore, many inspired leaders changed their own perspective on how to teach leadership. They did this by changing their own style of leadership and promoting it. The different styles of leadership includes: Authoritarian leaders, “Also known as autocratic leaders, provide clear expectations for what needs to be done when it should be done, and how it should be done.

This style of leadership is strongly focused on both command by the leader and control of the followers. There is also a clear division between the leader and the members. Authoritarian leaders make decisions independently with little or no input from the rest of the group.” There are Participative leaders, “also known as democratic leadership, is typically the most effective leadership style. Democratic leaders offer guidance to group members, but they also participate in the group and allow input from other group members. In Lewin’s study, children in this group were less productive than the members of the authoritarian group, but their contributions were of a higher quality.” Then there is Delegative leadership, “also known as laissez-faire leadership, were the least productive of all three groups. The children in this group also made more demands on the leader, showed little cooperation, and were unable to work independently.” These three styles of leadership was taken from a group of researchers led by Kurt Lewin. What was it about their leadership that motivated and encouraged you? For that same reason, I bet you can also remember your worst leader. Great leaders move us and inspire us to do our best work.

That said, “It is important that you have effective leaders in your workplace to empower and influence your people to achieve business and team goals. Here, Pulse Learning explore six of the big benefits of leadership training” (Courtney, 2015). Benefits of leadership do include increasing productivity, leadership is about understanding your people emotionally. Increasing employment engagement meaning, “43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week compared to only 18% of those with low engagement. Giving feedback is a skill of successful leaders.

Through leadership training, you can teach effective ways to give feedback to motivate and increase the skill level of your people” (Courtney, 2015). Being a leader in your community helps you make better decisions by being able to shadow former leaders and see what they did to become such a great leader. Leaders must be bold, but they must also have good judgment. They must also communicate effectively and they must be capable of empathy. Leaders must be focused on growth according to principles that inspire and motivate others to achieve clearly defined aims and objectives. Leadership skills can be developed from an early age and impacted both by natural talents and abilities also by personal experiences. There are many programs that the youth can get into that’ll teach them how to become the leader that their community needs its just a matter of taking the time and putting their own heart to it. REFERENCES Courtney, F. (2018, April 11). 6 Big Benefits of Leadership Training.

Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/6-big-benefits-of-leadership-training Develop Leadership Skills in Community Services. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.kangan.edu.au/students/blog/develop-leadership-skills-in-community-services Lincolnu College. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.lincolnu.edu/web/programs-and-projects/community-and-leadership-development Paul, P. (2011, January 07). Does Helping Out Help You? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09communityservice-t.html Read ‘Community Programs to Promote Youth Development’ at NAP.edu. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/10022/chapter/2#3 Why Study Leadership? Interview. (2018, June 28). Retrieved from https://cvdl.ben.edu/blog/leadership_studies/ Youth Leadership Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/youth-leadership-programs

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