I am currently doing a research on development of youth leadership
"How do young people think and develop about leadership?".
I have conducted some interviews but still need more information to
back up with the data I have got.
And I am wondering what is the difference between youth leadership and
professional leadership? how can we define youth leadership? what
motivates youth to take a leadership role? and what is the connection
between youth leadership and politics?
If you can help me find out all of the answers in the form of academic
research that would be great.
Thank you |
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 06:31 PDT
I need to write up a small journal article and have been sick for a
few days.... I hope the price is about right for this...
Thank you
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Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 06:53 PDT
After seeing a lot of works on google answers, it seems that this kind
of topics havent been posted much. I am willing to increase the price
if appropiate, because I think it is hard to gather the right
information.. Please ask me question if you would like to clarify the
question I have posted.
Cheers
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Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 07:24 PDT
Hi Kitty,
Thanks for your very interesting question. One important thing -- when
is your deadline to have this answered? As to the price, it seems OK
to me for what I foresee the amount of work to do will be -- in any
case, there is a tip feature you can use once the question was posted,
if you consider it is deserved, and according to a reasonable equation
between your budget and the work involved -- but that would just be a
voluntary bonus, I'm not suggesting it as an agreement previous to the
job.
Regards,
Guillermo
|
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 08:26 PDT
Hi there... I I can get it in 1 or 2 days that would be great... So in
New Zealand would be before Sunday.. Is that ok for you the deadline
is on Monday night that is the thing... For the tip feature, I will
definately use it according to the quality of the result...
Thank youuuu
|
Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 11:19 PDT
Hi,
The deadline seems to give a reasonable time. I'll be in touch.
Thanks for your reply.
Guillermo
|
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 17:33 PDT
Thank you
|
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
26 Oct 2006 22:32 PDT
Hi
I really like how you answer the question in "Genesis World Energy-
Real or Hoax?" What an awesome answer. Would be great to see that kind
of quality in this question. Just a comment to you, so you are
motivated.. :)
Thank you
|
Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
27 Oct 2006 06:10 PDT
Thank you. I'm glad you've been visiting my work. I do count the
answer you mentioned among my favorites. I really wish to add the one
I'm preparing for you to the top group :)
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Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
27 Oct 2006 06:38 PDT
Hi
I am sure it will be... Well if you need any further information just
let me know... Here is what I have covered so far in my research
journal (This research journal is for the Master of management
degree)... It is just a draft to give you an idea... Literature review
is quite broad but the concept is about leadership development of
youth how do young people develop leadership? Well just to give you an
idea hope this helps...
Literature review:
Most of the leadership development literature and practice have been
conducted in the area of professional work settings, but very few
studies have been carried out in youth organizations (Bowen & Shapiro,
1998; Wagner, 2006) such as students? associations. Various authors
believed that the skills for effective leadership are learnt from
experience rather than formal training programmes (McCall et al,
1988). Therefore, the professional development of leadership in youth
organizations is quite a new concept.
So how can youth organization implement professional leadership
development among their staff? What are the requirements to adapt
professional leadership development to youth organizations?
This literature review will investigate various issues regarding the
development of leadership in youth organizations based on the relevant
literature. Leadership learning programmes are argued to be a key to
unlocking the myth of developing leadership (Kouzes and Posner, 1995).
As a result of students reflecting upon experiences as leadership
development opportunities, they are able to more fully develop their
understanding and practice of leadership (Boatman, 1999; Densten &
Gray, 2001). The nature of youth organizations and the reasons why it
is difficult to develop leadership in young people will also be
discussed.
This paper will argue that professional leadership development can be
learnt and developed in youth organizations. As leadership is seen as
a key ingredient for future success, it is proposed that youth
organization must focus on their staff members? leadership skills and
not base their choice purely on technical expertise (Earley, 2000).
Leadership
Leadership is ill-define concept. There are thousands of meaning on
leadership. According to research in practice (2006) a traditional
view of leaders is about individualistic. The individual should have
vision to drive people to achieve a specific goal. The contemporary
meaning of leadership is about collective mind, drawing people
together and achieving goals with the same desire. Leadership meaning
is not static concept and for youth leadership, the concept is
different. We do not see youth as a leader yet rather as a future
leader (MacNeil, 2006). Therefore the development of youth leadership
is needed in our society.
Learning Leadership:
Although many scholars might argue that leaders are born and not made,
learning leadership is not an impossible concept. The focus on
training leadership is being shifted away, because there has been
relatively little research on its effectiveness (Kress, 2006), and
being replaced by development and education .
Weielkiewiez (2000) admits that volunteering for service organization
is associated with system thinking skills, which are critical for
leadership effectiveness. Astin (1985) suggests that getting involved
in the University?s activities has positive impacts on leadership
development. In addition, Ulrich et al (1999) does not focus entirely
on the learning aspect of the development of leadership, but also
discuss the importance of consideration of how behaviour needs to
change if people are to become more effective leaders.
Thus, the development of leadership tries to implement leadership
practice into youth organizations so that they can learn and develop
by making sense of self through their own experiences. Therefore, a
key development issue appears to be helping people to learn how to
learn from experience (Kress, 2006).
Experiences from interacting with the other people within the
organization will allow individuals to recognise themselves and their
identities in the context of others? expectations (Ashforth and
Kreiner, 1999). These experiences also enable people to make sense and
distinguish the quality of the informal experiences happening in their
everyday activities, this appears to be a critical means to individual
leadership development (Hartley et al., 2003).
However, Chan Kim and Mauborgne (2003) state that leadership
development in many organizations is based on a position where the
manager is seen as a leader, because the employees have to commit to a
manager?s decision. Power distance is thus vital in the development of
leadership, because the power distance creates the environment in
which such leadership cannot thrive (Bowerman, 2003). ?They say they
are concerned about developing leaders, when in reality they feel more
secure with managers. The art of leadership development is still in
its infancy? (Conger, 1996: 57).
The task of developing youth leaders is a matter of creating
environments that will nurture capacities for leadership and helping
youth to let go of the self-interest that gets in the way in
organizations and to show them how to respond to present
organizational needs.
Nature of Youth Organizations
Many youth organizations have implemented leadership development
through field trips or conferences. However, leadership development
is not an event, but should be an integrated process within an
organization therefore organizational support networks are needed to
reinforce leadership development (Conger and Benjamin, 1999). Youth
leadership development is not happening in VUWSA because the
interaction between the member and followers (students) does not
happen.
In addition, a difficulty that youth organizations face is their short
leadership cycles as short leadership development processes are
ineffective (Alimo-Metcalfe and Lawler, 2001). Short leadership cycles
result in the loss of organizational goal and direction. The
continuous change in leadership in youth organizations on an annual
basis constrains the development of leadership, because teamwork
ability, their understanding of the roles, and a sense of doing
meaningful things within the organization are unlikely to occur
(Kress, 2006).
As a result of this time constraint many of the youth organizations
unintentionally develop leadership in a traditional way. They
concentrate on individual rather than modern trends in leadership
theory, that being the movement away from the concept of leadership
residing in one person towards a concept of leadership residing in the
relationship between and among individuals (Astin & Leland, 1991).
There is not enough time to gain any advantage experience which has a
direct negative effect on youth leadership in the future.
Without advantage experience, a young leader can easily be under
pressure by the tasks that are given or the followers, resulting in
the discouragement to the other youth that want to be leaders one day.
The development of leadership in youth organizations needs a
professional leadership development approach on issues of
decision-making power and influence (MacNeil, 2006) because youth
often fail to see themselves as actors in decision-making processes
(Kress, 2006).
The understanding of leadership within the organization is quite
underdeveloped and there exist different views about leadership
(Alimo-Metcalfe and Lawler, 2001). For example, many of the youth
organizations only refer to ?leadership? with regard to the position
of the President of the organization. This reflects a lack of
understanding that leadership takes place at all levels in the
organization especially with students association, because each of the
members represents students in different issues. Cohen and Tichy
(1997) and Senga (1992) state that work in the learning organization
suggests leaders are needed at all levels.
What Goes Wrong With Youth Leadership Development?
The American researchers Confer (1993) and Fulmer (1997) show that
leadership development in non-profit organization and youth
organization is illogical and disorganized, possibly because all
people perceive leadership differently (McKibben, 2004). The notion of
leadership development is then found to be problematic when applied to
different organizations (Pittaway, Rivera & Murphy, 2005).
The concept of leadership is largely drawn on much of the literature,
both popular and scholarly, and it is focussed heavily on adult
leadership development and practice. There is little research
regarding youth leadership development. Bass (1981), well known for
his views on leadership, failed to mention youth leadership or the
development of youth leadership. Thus the notion of adult leadership
and the youth leadership in literature are quite different.
The American study (Davis, 1997) refers to youth leadership as having
a future orientation. Youth are not leaders but have the potential to
develop leadership skills that will be necessary to be effective
leaders in future. Most of the leadership development programme is
then designed to develop the competencies considered to be important
in leaders (Kress, 2006). This is believed to derive from trait theory
'great man' or 'implicit' theory of leadership where it assumes that
certain behaviours are required for leadership. This means that
certain people are born with a set of key personality characteristics
which make them 'natural' leaders (Research in practice, 2006). If
this is true the development of leadership is not a possible concept.
This calls for attention to leadership development in young people, to
rethink youth leadership development as something beneficial to
society as a whole (Olsen et al., 2004) and to see youth for what they
have to offer not just what they need. By exploring youth need, they
can develop leadership in their meaningful way.
For this reason, several studies suggest that youth development of
leadership should be the opportunity not only to develop skills and
knowledge but also to apply, practice (Kress, 2006; MacNeil, 2006) and
acquire a sense of importance from doing significant things and from
being active participants (Kohn, 1994: 282) as a role rather a
position (Davis, 1997).
The final comment is that leaders are not born rather made through our
experiences. Most leadership scholars also agree that it is possible
to grow the leadership competence of individual for leadership role
(Research in practice, 2006).
Future Direction
The development of leadership in youth is a realistic concept but
there is rare evidence of its effectiveness. It appears that
leadership can be developed and learnt only through experiences. It is
also important to remember that the combinations of age, ethnicity,
gender, sexual orientation, life experience, and other factors are
needed to be considered in the development of leadership.
In addition, very few studies have been published on youth leadership
and the development of youth leadership. Most of the theories are
based on professional leadership development and there is very little
evidence as to whether professional leadership development practice
can be transferred to youth organizations.
But it is widely known that organisations can take steps to improve
the quality of their leadership. It is also widely acknowledged that
'the child will never learn to ride the bike unless she is given a
bike to learn on. That is, people need practical opportunities to
develop their leadership competence (Research in practice, 2006).
As there is not consensus on the best way to develop leadership, it is
a challenging task to assess which method is best used to develop
leaders in youth organizations. There is no single way to describe
leadership, therefore it is quite difficult to capture the meaning of
leadership from young people?s perspective without hearing from them
personally. Some of the literature is very important in the study of
youth leadership development, but the development of leadership
concept is broad and some leadership development literature is
irrelevant to the study of youth leadership and its development.
Research finding:
The research finding has shown a very interesting leadership
characteristic among youth. In charismatic leadership theory that is
largely influenced by professional context, I found that a charismatic
leadership in youth is quite common even though the people do not know
the term charismatic leadership. But from their experience and
thinking about leadership, it fits well with this charismatic
leadership theories. This includes, they feel emotions themselves
quite strongly, they induce them in others, and they are impervious to
the influences of other charismatic people (Vega, 2004). Most of the
young people that I have conducted interviews with show the three
characteristics strongly. According to a young girl executive working
for a youth organization, she said that ?leadership is about seeing
things through, you need to get the right vision, that is not what you
see but the other people can see it too?.
This is quite a strong message that relate to charismatic leadership.
One reason may be that the charismatic leadership is embodied within
individuals and because of the youth organization gives them the
opportunity to express themselves in a meaningful way.
For example, this organization encourages the executives to come up
with the ideas, thinking outside the box, even though most of the
ideas are derived from an individual, but it still shows that the
development of youth leadership is there to be achieved. For the
others who have no opportunity to work in any organization, leadership
development becomes a harder task but it is not impossible.
A young man executive admitted that ?Be able to express what he feels,
thinks and act about the issues around youth give him the opportunity
to develop his skills, skills that I cannot learn from school or
anywhere else?. This finding has come with no surprised, because many
of the leadership scholars also agree that leadership cannot be taught
but can be learnt through own experience. And this might be one of the
reasons why leadership is largely talked within the professional
context, because young people spend most of their time learning but
not acting.
Therefore, it is quite important that young people get the
opportunities to be able to express themselves not only learning what
leadership is all about. Most of the young people agree that ?they do
not think that they can really learn leadership, because knowing and
acting are quite different, many students know a lot about theories
but not able to apply in real situation, for us we do not know much
about theories, we just act?.
Even though they work in youth organization, the development of
leadership does exist at implicit level. Corresponds to the work of
Sellers (1996), Kirkpatrick and Locke (1996), there are four stages in
the development of charismatic leadership. First the charismatic
leaders seem to have a great sense of strategic vision and a capacity
to convey the essence and capability of that to a broad group of
people. Second, they try to conduct innovative ideas to contribute to
the organizations. Third, they set challenging goals, causes followers
to question traditional approaches, values and beliefs. Lastly, they
see themselves as a leader by giving followers the feeling they are
treated as unique individuals, treatment is perceived as different
from that received by others. All of these characteristics are
emphasised within this youth organization, but since the organization
objectives are not crystal clear as professional organization, that is
why leadership development is in youth organization is not explicit as
it should be.
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Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
28 Oct 2006 05:07 PDT
I might have scared some researchers off with the topic... Well
hopefully someone can help me with this.
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Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
28 Oct 2006 05:57 PDT
Dear Kitty,
After the dialog we've had, if I decided to leave the project, I would
let you know first -- any researcher would, once an explicit
interrelation with the customer has been established. If you saw the
question unlocked is just because I woke up a bit later than the
lock's expiration time and there was a few minutes gap. So please be
reassured that I'm still working on it.
Regards,
Guillermo
|
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
28 Oct 2006 06:12 PDT
Hi guillermo
I thought you ran away... :) well I am relief that you are still here!!!!...
I have increased the price as well, but well I am quite happy with
what you are going through with me so I think you deserve a bit more..
:) I will give you a little bit more time if it helps.. I have asked
you before to give the answer for me by Sunday but if you could answer
the questions by Monday then it would be fine.. I will try to find a
way to rush things up..
I have been doing my research very well so far just waiting for
addition information from you and hopefully you are working on it.
Thank you
|
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
28 Oct 2006 06:13 PDT
Hi guillermo
I thought you ran away... :) well I am relief that you are stil here!!!!...
I have increased the price as well, but well I am quite happy with
what you are going through with me so I think you deserve a bit more..
:) I will give you a little bit more time if it helps.. I have asked
you before to give the answer for me by Sunday but if you could answer
the questions by Monday then it would be fine.. I will try to find a
way to rush things up..
I have been doing my research very well so far just waiting for
addition information from you and hopefully you are working on it.
Thank you
|
Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
29 Oct 2006 13:47 PST
Hi Kitty,
It was good that you extended my deadline until today, thanks for that
-- as your long clarification was very helpful in precising the nature
of the work, it also showed a farther scope than first foreseen. It is
Monday morning now in your place, but you originally talked about you
having a deadline tonight -- is that still like this? If so, please
tell me until what time today can I deliver my answer to you so it
won't be too late. Thank you.
Guillermo
|
Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
29 Oct 2006 14:39 PST
Hi guillermo
It's 11.36 am now in New Zealand. If you can deliver before 9pm that
would be great..... so you have around 9 more hours !!!! isnt that
great?? This is because I just got the extension till tomorrow morning
(Very early morning). How are you doing with the research?
Thank you
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Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
29 Oct 2006 14:51 PST
Great indeed! :)
I'm doing fine, I think. More on organizational work than academic
reseach, thought -- does that serve your purpose too?
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Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
29 Oct 2006 14:56 PST
Yeah... well the orgnizational purpose is great, because it is
practical... For the academic parts I think I have covered them (but
if you find something else just post them), because the more the
better :).
The purpose of this research is to look at the development of youth
leadership... How the youth develops their leadership skills, and how
youth organization helps them to do so..
Does it make sense?
Here is one of the section that I have covered.. Hope this helps
'?Development of leadership through experiences.?
Even though some leadership scholars believe that the understanding of
leadership within the youth organization is quite underdeveloped
because of there exist different views about leadership
(Alimo-Metcalfe and Lawler, 2001). The finding suggests differently.
It seems that the youth organization helps young people to unlock the
leadership potential that embodied within the individual.
The advantage of youth organization in development of leadership is
the ability to give the freedom to young people. This is because there
is no financial pressure, and shareholders? pressure as much as
professional organizations. Whereas, in the professional
organizations, managers have obligations to their staff, not only have
to deal with change as employees but also need to carry some of the
concerns of their staffs and their organization?s shareholders (Bacal,
2002).Youth organization therefore, enhances the individual?s
abilities and skills in a great extent by allowing young people to
learn leadership through their experiences.
The organization gives me a very challenging opportunity to express
what I feel and think about the issues that interest me [?] this has
given me the opportunity to develop my skills, skills that I cannot
learn from school or anywhere else.
This finding has come with no surprised, because many of the
leadership scholars also agree that leadership cannot be taught but
can be learnt through experiences (Astin, 1985) and this might be one
of the reasons why youth leadership is developed better when students
join club activities or organization, because that is when they use
their knowledge into practice.
The arguments are supported by the most of young executives? opinion
on the development of leadership. They do not think that they can
really learn leadership from school, because what they know sometimes
is not applicable on what they are doing.
Working for the organization is totally different from what I have
learnt from classroom ? The most significant aspect has been in
developing my own leadership skills. I feel I have gained a lot of
confidence in my personal ability to present and lead. [?] Leadership
has become for me achieving progress together with others. Previously
I thought leadership had to do with getting others to do things.
The task of developing youth leaders is a matter of creating
environments that will nurture capacities for leadership (Foster,
1998). This is the differences from the other leadership development.
Instead of teaching people to be leaders, they are to nurture their
potential for leadership. Parents become partners to youth leadership
efforts, while teachers and other adults support, empower and
facilitate their developing capacities (Foster, 1998). On the other
hand, professional leadership development is based on developing the
necessary skills that are required for the job, not enhancing the
potential leadership skills that are embodied within the individual
(Research in practice, 2003).
Thank you
PS. If you can access the academic journal please do so, I also can access them.
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Clarification of Question by
kittychan-ga
on
29 Oct 2006 21:00 PST
Hi
I have come to last phase of the research project... I hope that you
have gathered ralevant information so I can revise my research work...
Thank you
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Request for Question Clarification by
guillermo-ga
on
30 Oct 2006 00:03 PST
Dear Kitty,
I am about to post my answer. Actually, I could have had it earlier,
but a local power breakdown about three hours ago left me in the dark
and disconnected. You can imagine how upset I was, facing the
possibility of not being able to deliver the information you're
waiting for at all. I phoned the energy company and, fortunately, in
about one hour and a half the power came back. However, I suffered
some delay (many web pages opened that I had to trace again), so I ask
you please a bit of patience, and I'll post my answer soon enough.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Guillermo
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