Leadership

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” – Sheryl Sandberg

We come into contact with a variety of leaders every day, including student leaders.  Our goal in teaching and integrating the Community with Character is all about building capacity to lead within each and every one of us, in whatever form that may take.  Leadership skills allow children to have control of their lives and the ability to make things happen. Leadership instills confidence, and helps children solve problems creatively, work in a team, and work collaboratively with others. Leadership gives children many opportunities to develop responsibility Leadership and Children.  According to educationworld.com we need to:

• Put students in charge – Find tasks and roles in your daily routines and create opportunities for students to lead.
• Show off your leadership - explain your responsibilities and why you do certain things.  “Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate.”– Anonymous
• Provide good examples – Discuss both good and bad leadership behavior so students can learn the qualities that make great leaders.
• Deliver leadership lessons – make the time to teach leadership and why it is so important for future careers and life.

15 Tips to Instill Leadership Skills in Children

Every child has the potential to be a leader. Some may have more traits associated with leadership, but any child's leadership ability, at whatever level, can be groomed and nurtured. 10 Simple Ways to Develop Leadership Skills in Your Children

Designing projects in which teams develop a single final product

• The team can work on a collaborative platform, such as Google Docs. They can all edit the document together.
• Each team member can write a specific part of the content. For example, if they are working on a project for history class, each can explore a different era. Then they can combine the parts in a unique presentation that you grade as a team project.

Activities to teach leadership in Upper Elementary and Middle School

Teaching Leadership Ideas Grade 1-8

                How to Teach Your Child to Lead

 

Scholarly Research on the Importance of Teaching and Cultivating Leadership:  In her observational study of nursery and kindergarten classes, Perez (1982) found that

children as young as 3 assert influence over classmates. She concluded that students with high

verbal ability, independence and sense of structure were more likely to act as leaders. Lee et al.

(2005) identified four different leadership styles in preschool children. They found that

preschool leaders showed advanced social and cognitive capabilities, verbal language

proficiency, dramatic skills, creativity, imagination, and independence. These young leaders

displayed behaviours such as recruiting others to play, offering new and interesting ideas for

play, being sensitive to others feelings, and being silly. Lee et al. conclude that because

leadership styles emerge at a very early age, educators can provide a variety of contexts for

children to influence each other in play and develop their leadership skills.

This is a short video on every day leadership by Drew Dudley

How to start a movement by Derek Sivers

Kid President Pep Talk about Teamwork and Leadership

How the animal kingdom demonstrates leadership

Simon Sinek: Start with the Why-How Great Leaders Inspire Action