Leading the way in challenging times

We've been hearing a lot of bad news the last couple of days about the recession's effect on young people: there are now nearly a million under-25s out of work. It can be difficult to be optimistic in these challenging times.

However, the research we've been doing at the Young Foundation as part of The Youth of Today reveals that the recession creates conditions that can actually be good for young leaders. We found in our research that the best chance for young people to build leadership skills and exercise leadership is when they’re engaged in challenging action around issues that reflect their genuine needs and offer authentic opportunities to make decisions and effect change. The recession clearly presents these conditions. We write about this in our forthcoming publication, Taking the Lead: Youth leadership in theory and practice.

Moreover, we’ve found that empowering young people within the consortium itself as decision-makers and leaders of our organisations has meant we are more responsive, engaged and effective in our work; young people bring innovative ideas and perspectives that improve institutions. We also hear this a lot from the MPs and civil servants we engage in our UpRising programme: meeting with engaged young leaders brings them inspiration and fresh solutions.

 We are learning just how important it is to empower young people to lead in difficult times. Not only do current economic and social challenges present an opportunity for developing young people as leaders, but engaging young people also presents us with a unique opportunity to face and address today’s challenges head on. Crises are also opportunities: if there is ever a time that young, new leadership is needed it is when old systems are in crisis, and youth leadership can serve as a vehicle for tackling pressing social challenges and catalysing positive social change

That said, it’s one thing to talk about these principles and another to put them into action, and I’ve been mulling over how we do this. How do we ensure our institutions get better at engaging young people as leaders of change? How can they support and benefit from young people’s ideas and energy and leadership more effectively? We would welcome your ideas. Join the debate!