Alicia DelCupp Xavier University Sport Leadership Coaching Your Kids to be Leaders Book Review Of the three books

we read during this course this one was the most important, in my opinion, because it addresses one of the biggest issues in leadership education: how to teach youth to be leaders. One particular part of the first chapter that struck a chord with me was when Williams was talking about Columbine. I am from Littleton, and Columbine was the high school I was supposed to go to. I was in 7th grade when the tragedy happened, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. Williams used the death of Danny Rohrbough as an example of a brave individual who demonstrated boldness, character and a servants heart. These are all qualities of a leader, and he exhibited them in a situation where most people wouldnt. Williams suggests the world needs more people like Danny Rohrbough and I couldnt agree more. The rest of the book identifies ways we can develop our youth to be the type of leader that Danny was. Williams suggests that the earliest leadership training takes place at home, and I believe this is the major reason the youth of today are lacking in leadership ability. More children are growing up in low income families where the parents do not have the time or do not care enough to put in the effort to help build their childs future. As Williams points out, a leader has to lead all the time, not just when he or she feels like it. Parents often seem to forget this. A growing number of parents are content letting others raise their children. From teachers, to coaches, to other family members, the responsibility of raising a child is passed around; and

usually the child is left with no real mentor in their life. Parents do not get to be parents just when they feel like it. They have an obligation to their child to give them the best advice and opportunities to make them successful in their future. While most parents complain about not having time to raise one or two kids, Williams describes how it was raising 19. He is proof that even with a busy schedule children can still be, and should be, the number one commitment. Williams identifies seven qualities of any effective leader to be vision, communication, people skills, character, competence, boldness, and servanthood. A reoccurring quality that both the books and articles discussed was having a vision. This quality is what ties the other six together, and is necessary if one wants to advance as a leader. Leaders should not only have a vision for their own future, but a vision for the future of others. Parents need to have a vision for their childrens future, and encourage their children to create their own vision as well. Another important concept that was presented in all three books was that leaders are made not born. Williams asked the question, If todays kids do not become leaders, where does society go? As a society, we must have a vision for how we plan to prepare our future leaders. If we are not dedicated to improving leadership ability in our youth, then all we are preparing them for is failure. One example Williams used to show the importance of encouraging youth to have a vision was a story about Walt Disney drawing faces on his flowers in fourth grade. His teacher scolded him and told him flowers do not have faces! This teacher obviously did not understand the importance of embracing creativity when building leaders. Walt Disney went on to be extremely successful, but what if he had taken what his teacher said as truth and decided that flowers in fact did not have faces?

Part of the problem with adults having the responsibility of teaching youth leadership is that most adults do not relate to young people. More often than not, we expect youth to adapt to our point of views instead of encouraging discussion among young and old to maybe realize a new point of view that everyone can relate to. For example, there is a 22 year old woman by the name of Mindy Meyer that is running for New York State Senate. Her campaign website (www.mindymeyer4senate.com) is very unorthodox as far as political websites go, boasting a bright pink background and glittery font. She stated the reason her website looks like this is because she is trying to connect with a younger population. The site is laid out almost like a social networking profile page, making it easy to navigate and not too overwhelming with political jargon. While her site has received a lot of criticism, she was endorsed to be on the ballot. Instead of criticizing her for making a bold move, other politicians should be thinking of ways to reach the younger generation as well because they are the future of politics. Ms. Meyer exhibited some of the leadership qualities Williams identified such as vision, boldness, and communication. Another quality that is critical in a true leader is servanthood. One cannot be a leader if there are no followers, and one will not gain followers until they are servants to others. Williams identifies two types of leaders in this world: bosses and servants. Bosses enjoy power, give orders and expect their subordinates to serve them. Servant leaders empower others, serve others, and delegate authority to others. Part of servanthood is understanding that youth have something to contribute to society. Instead of trying to control youth, we need to give up some of that control and let them succeed or fail on their own. By letting them go through these experiences, good or bad, leaders are empowering them. Parents can teach their children

the importance of servanthood by involving them in activities such as volunteering, community cleanup projects, and tutoring programs to help younger students in school. If we ingrain the importance of servanthood in our children from a young age, it will benefit them greatly in the future. I think the last two chapters on how to mentor and motivate might be the most important parts of the book. One thing I noticed from reading the different literature in this course is that there seems to be an abundance of information on the problems facing leadership in youth today, but most solutions call for an adult to take the initiative to start the change. If they choose not to, then we will continue to face the same issues in leadership among youth. In chapter 12, Williams discusses his job description for effective mentors. In his description he asserts that, among other things, mentors exemplify good character and moral principles, they build confidence and affirm a young persons sense of self- worth, and they fill the gap in the lives of fatherless kids. I think the roles defined in the programs discussed in the article by Martinek fit nicely into Williamss job description of a mentor. While these programs have adult administrators, most of the teachers are younger individuals and the interactions between leader and camper are still interactions between youth. These programs not only teach youth to recognize their own leadership ability, but they work to teach these youth how to help others recognize their potential as well. These programs show the value of letting youth peer teach, and are a starting point for building leaders for our future. There should be more programs like these that offer children the opportunity to be leaders. If the adults in our society will not take charge in teaching our youth how to be the leaders of our future, it is up to the younger generation to teach themselves. While it is in no way an easy task to get young people

to care about their future and the future of others with no role model for them to look up to, it is not impossible. It would be nice if all parents, coaches, teachers, and people that work with children in general, would step up and accept their responsibility, however, it is difficult to get adults to change their ways. Our focus needs to turn to youth and giving them opportunities, like these two programs Martinek discussed, to be ambassadors of their own futures.