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The Facilitation of Professional Leadership Development in a

Youth Organizations: A Case Study of Victoria University’s

Students Association (VUWSA).

Introduction

Most of the leadership development1 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 VUWSA2 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

1 Explores the systemic which leaders and followers operate and seeks to intervene to enhance effectiveness – focuses on the intervention to develop interpersonal skills. 2 VUWSA is the official representative body for students studying at Victoria University. We have over 18,500 members and work on the principle that the best people to represent the interests of students are students themselves

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success, it is proposed that VUWSA 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 education3.

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).

3 An emphasis oriented towards conscious awareness of social patterns that produces insight into knowledge, ideals, insights and experiences that shape individual and group beliefs and values, to enable collective integration into collective goals (Barker, 1997).

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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). VUWSA 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 such as VUWSA on an

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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, VUWSA 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).

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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 leadership4 and the youth

leadership5 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).

4 Focuses on issues of authority: how do, and how should, leaders apply those skills to real-life situations where significant consequences are at stake (MacNeil, 2006). 5 Focuses on ability: how do, and how should, educators support youth in development of specific leadership skills (MacNeil, 2006).

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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.

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