The Long Arc: Bending Toward a Billion (Young) Leaders

In the wake of a contentious election cycle that is finally coming to a close, I have found myself wondering about definitions of leadership and thinking about those we presume to exemplify leadership, such as the commander-in-chief. I've pondered the relevance of working at a leadership training institution in such divisive times. And I have, admittedly, been looking for a way forward through the chaos. My processing has led to three helpful insights from the leadership development field about where we go from here that I am heavily leaning on these days. Perhaps they'll be useful to you, too.

It starts with youth

Adolescence is slowly being redefined as an age of opportunity. Young people are incredibly resourceful, keenly aware of their identities, and thrive through peer connection. They can and will lead themselves and others in a myriad of ways, some of which we know can be damaging (i.e. bullying). It's up to us (supportive adults) to leverage what we know from leadership development about the power of connection, empathy, and self-awareness to give them the opportunities to lead prosocially. A recent tracking of incidents of identity-based harassment has shown that K-12 spaces are disturbingly overrepresented as sites of conflict. What can we make of this? Schools are often not the safe spaces for developing minds that we want them to be, but they can be. Offering youth -- and educators -- the self-awareness, connection, and understanding of others that comes from leadership development can provide them with the tools to advocate for themselves, speak up on behalf of others, and create a more supportive learning setting. Working with schools to create the conditions that allow each student to see themselves as a leader in their own world can not only be empowering in the moment but can impact student development for a lifetime.

It builds on acts of 'microleadership'

A recent post by Alex Budak discussed the idea of democratizing leadership and moving away from thinking hierarchically about leaders as only those at the top of organizations. We should no longer 'conflate acts of leadership with positions of leadership' -- lest we miss out on the service-oriented mindset of leadership that we all can embody. Just as we can think of all students as leaders, we can think of all community members, all of ourselves, as leaders, too. Each of us can possess the tools to enact change in our personal lives, our families, our social circles, and our communities. We can do this daily by increasing our own self-awareness and identifying ways to connect and cooperate with those around us. Other acts of microleadership include simply deciding how we show up in tough situations and following through on the commitments we believe in with tangible actions and behaviors.

It requires interdependence

Intergroup contact theory, a long-standing field of study within social psychology, has shown us time and again that we overcome difference and division when we are constructively exposed to difference. The result is even stronger when we bridge difference to work toward common goals. Distributed leadership in our increasingly connected world is going to require interdependence -- a recognition of how our lives and work are intertwined with others. Interdependence both requires and fosters empathy, a necessary condition for the difficult conversations that can reduce bias and prejudice. Thanks to technology removing many physical boundaries that may have impeded connection, the boundaries we face in our lives today are largely psychological and relational. If we can learn to see ourselves in others, to recognize our commonality, and to honor the ways that our liberation and/or oppression is tied up in that of others, we might just have a fighting chance.

One might construe this post as naively optimistic, and perhaps it is. Some days I have more fight in me than others, more dogged commitment to exposing injustice and urging that long arc of the moral universe to bend more quickly and urgently toward justice. But other days are tiring, awash in anxiety and a new kind of fear that I think is probably unique to new parents (my most recent identity expansion). On those days especially, but hopefully on every day, I am simply hoping to remember the three insights outlined above: youth, microleadership, interdependence. Focusing on fostering the potential of a billion young leaders to build a more interdependent world is at once incredibly daunting, tremendously inspiring, and more necessary than ever before.