How should we grow young leaders? How differently or similarly do people from different generations and backgrounds think?

Because of the environment we grow up in, each generation listens and responds differently from the one before them. Our expectations for school, work, and life, vary. As people who work with youth, how can we engage them? How can we ensure that our leadership practices are relevant and have a lasting impact? Let’s hear thoughts from an educator, student, working professional and youth developer.

Halogen360: In school, whether with colleagues or students, how much responsibility should we share, and what does a shared leadership contribute to? Hear from Shirleen Ong, Principal of Methodist Girls’ School, on the longevity and lasting impact that shared leadership can bring.

Shirleen Ong: Many of us grew up knowing of authoritarian leaders who were crystal clear about what needed to be done and how that should be done. Today, authoritarian leaders are seen as self-centred, non-consultative, and critical of differing opinions. However, they do get things done.

In recent years, shared leadership has been increasingly pervasive. The leader is consultative and taps on the strengths of team members. He values the insights and experiences of his team, and every major decision is made with inputs from his team; of course, the decision made is usually not unexpected. He generates a sense of shared ownership of the decision taken.

Having met both types of leaders, I appreciate that each type of leadership has its place and season. Unfortunately, the authoritarian leader who holds the key to almost everything, lacks relevance today. If the success of the organisation resides in one person, this success will erode when the leader leaves.

When I was moving from the leadership of one school to another, I was told, “The success of the school that you have led will only be clear when you leave. If there is continued success in the school after you leave, then, you have led well.” Indeed, I rejoice with the school each time I read or hear of its achievements. Thankfully, the success in the school has been sustained after I left. As a result of shared ownership, sustained learning persists.

“I was told, ‘The success of the school that you have led will only be clear when you leave. If there is continued success in the school after you leave, then, you have led well’… As a result of shared ownership, sustained learning persists.” –Shirleen Ong

In today’s complex and dynamic world, shared leadership has the best chance of success. The community thrives when every member contributes of his talents and strengths: together they sharpen the focus of their vision, the direction of inquiry, the depth of the reflection, and they sustain their achievements. I appreciate this because I work with a Senior Management Team with a diversity of talents.

A school is a community of different groups of people. The leader needs to draw on the talents, skills and professional expertise of others in the school, to drive it to success. Schools, more than any other organisation, must appreciate the strengths of each group of people and the potential within.

Halogen360: Delegating responsibilities to adults can be relatively easy, partly because we expect them to have a sense of know-how. But how about giving ownership to youth? How much can we entrust young people with? Should we just do the job ourselves instead? A Halogen volunteer, 19-year-old Muhd Zulhilmie, shares with us his personal secondary school and junior college leadership experiences.

Muhd Zulhilmie: Having held different leadership positions since primary school all the way to junior college, I have gone through many different experiences and met many different types of colleagues and superiors.

Naturally, as we grow older, we will be given more leadership opportunities and greater responsibilities. However, it was not so in my experience. In my personal experience, there was a dip in how much my peers and I were entrusted with when dealing with programmes in junior college, as compared to our involvement in secondary school.

In secondary school as a Peer Support Leader, I felt that I was given much more responsibilities and held many important roles. My teachers trusted us with our own meetings and agendas, and only stepped in when we were really in need of help. They were open to our failures and guided us when we lost our sight of the goal. They gave us a sense of freedom which made me feel empowered and helped me mature. Consequently, I returned the favour by teaching what I learnt to my juniors. Now, I am invited back every once in awhile to lend a helping hand, which I thoroughly enjoy.

In contrast, my leadership experience in junior college was a rather dull one. Being older and having tasted what I did in secondary school, I expected more opportunities as a Student Councillor at a higher level institution. However, most of the work was already done by teachers and we did not discuss new ideas much.

Often, the seniors were called back to do the tasks. By just being told what to do, I felt I was unable to learn many new leadership skills. It only seemed to me that my teacher just wanted to avoid any form of possible failure and keep our reputation as clean as possible.

The types of leadership experiences I had in secondary school and junior college varied differently due to the way my teachers treated me. While I understand the reasons my junior college teachers may have had, I valued my secondary school experience more because my teachers were willing to dare and try, and involve us even though we were young. It was very empowering.

“While I understand the reasons my junior college teachers may have had, I valued my secondary school experience more because my teachers were willing to dare and try, and involve us even though we were young. It was very empowering.” – Muhd Zulhilmie

Hence, ironically, I felt more able and motivated in secondary school than when I was in junior college. There was a sense of ownership with the events that my peers and I organised because we built on our own ideas and consulted our teachers instead of being told what to do. That kind of leadership that was shared between student and teacher motivated me to take initiative, do better, and ultimately become a better leader.

Halogen360: Beyond a concept, leadership is a practice that can be nurtured and practiced. How does leadership translate in the workplace, and how can you prepare your youth for it? Su Mei Teh, a Sales Operations Manager with Google, shares some key insights.

Su Mei Teh: Over the years and across the corporations I have worked in, I see a shift towards shared leadership. I think the era of leading by fear is giving way to genuine leadership.

I once encountered a leader who did not have the best interests of his staff. Despite good wages, the staff team simply was not happy. The sentiments of the staff was reflected by this line “I am better than this; I can find another place where I am respected and developed”. Not surprisingly, many people left. This leader may have been brilliant at making money as an individual. But with a high turnover rate, his organisation will find it hard to be sustainable in the long-term. Genuine leadership builds loyalty, respect and true followership.

Currently, the concept of delegation and empowerment has been the best practice dominating professional workplaces. It is no surprise that this goes hand-in-hand with increasing competition (from employers). Most of the best and the brightest employees want to be challenged and empowered to make decisions in order to stay with their employers.

“Genuine leadership builds loyalty, respect and true followership.” –Su Mei Teh

From the employer’s point of view, they also have their expectations. For youths to lead in our global economy, they will need to possess the following critical mindsets, skills and competencies.

1. Communication: The art of communication is a key skill to possess. This is not just about being technically good at a language, but about phrasing questions or demands thoughtfully, managing communications between different stakeholders, and proper body language, which is effective in crossing all language barriers.
2. Adaptability: Adaptibility is critical. We work in increasingly fast-changing global environments and constantly need to adapt to new cultural contexts, and even time zones. For example, I am currently in a job where I have to run time sensitive processes across timezones in the United States of America, Europe and Asia. I have once-a-week midnight video conferences with the rest of my teammates. Meanwhile, my company is also constantly upgrading our IT systems such that I constantly have to master our new systems and workflows.
3. Accountability: Every good leader takes accountability for the results of his/her actions, including the failures, and then learns from them. At a senior management conference I organised some years back, I realised to my horror that I had forgotten to load the CEO’s presentation on the presenting laptop. Thankfully, the audience preferred her speech without the slides. Afterwards, she expressed her slight dissatisfaction to me, and I made a note to ensure I shared responsibilities going forward, instead of trying to keep everything on my overflowing plate.

Educators can replicate the shared leadership model in the workplace and be role models of genuine leadership by:

• Empowering students to make decisions
• Not punishing failure excessively, so that students will have courage to take accountability for their actions and understand why they have failed. After that, give them opportunities to apply their learning in other occasions
• Train adaptability by using different formats for class assignments

If you want your youth to succeed in the workplace, I encourage you to train them to communicate, adapt, and take accountability as leaders who work well in teams.

Halogen360: The same leadership principle applies from schools to workplaces, with peers and juniors or seniors—that is, share it. Sean Kong, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Halogen Foundation Singapore, helps us understand the need to adapt leadership to be effective in our current world.
Sean Kong : Traditionally, leadership has always been about the sole figure providing direction, and giving all the answers to the most difficult of problems. The requirements of leadership has not changed over time, but in an increasingly complexed and fast-paced world, these same requirements have become increasingly difficult for one person to bear.

To tackle these new and increased challenges, many corporations have migrated from the traditional hierarchical leadership towards a more flattened shared leadership structure. Many Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric and Procter & Gamble have adopted such a leadership structure and culture in order to remain competitive.

Shared leadership is about maximising the human resources in an organisation by empowering individuals to lead, especially in their areas of expertise. The concept of shared leadership, though a crucial workplace competency, is a hard one to grasp, and an even harder one to apply.

“Shared leadership is about maximising the human resources in an organisation by empowering individuals to lead, especially in their areas of expertise.” – Sean Kong

Learning to work in a team is one of the fundamentals of shared leadership, and the nature of Co-Curricular Activities build in students the mindset of being a team player. Shared leadership however, is at a different level. Students need to feel confident to step out and lead others in what they are good at, while at the same time feel comfortable with being led by others in other areas. They need to get used to the idea of sharing responsibility and being interdependent on each other.

Large-scale project management (like service learning projects) has been one of the more effective platforms in which we have seen students learn and exhibit elements of shared leadership. These students also go on to become more confident in learning to work with others.

More organisations are ditching hierarchical leadership and adopting shared leadership. If shared leadership is the way to go for the future, then the following question is a befitting one to ask: How are we preparing our students for their future, where the work culture will increasingly be one of shared leadership.

At Halogen, we believe shared leadership can be learnt and developed, and classrooms and school environments can be re-shaped to cultivate an environment conducive for learning shared leadership. By doing so, we build students who are confident about their own strengths, and effective future leaders who lead from their strengths.