Youth leadership is a fairly common phrase. But if you asked most people to describe youth leadership, I think they’d come up a little short. They would focus on how it helps the “smartest” kids with the “highest potential” build a conventionally successful future.
But as a high school teacher and advisor, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful leadership training for students can be when done in a way that speaks to everyone and focuses on becoming a leader from the inside out. It’s just one of the reasons I find the Siegfried Youth Leadership Program® (SYLP) so uniquely powerful.
Over the last few years, I’ve been to several SYLP events. Whenever I discuss it with others or try to demonstrate the importance of leadership for high school students, I generally hear a few of the same questions or statements.
And with that in mind, I wanted to dispel two of the most common “myths” I hear about youth leadership.