Postings from the front line

Good luck with that. We do a lot of leadership training on our courses too and most often the initial response to the idea of 'leadership' is negative - people think they don't want/need it and people who are clearly good leaders (this includes young people AND adults) fail to accept the role - or very often with adults they'll hide it under the misguided idea that by not taking a lead they're "empowering young people".

We use a facilitation approach too and try to demonstrate that leadership can be fluid in style according to the situation and also that in some cases it can be fluid in who the leader actually is at different times.

On the other hand we also see lots of people who think they're good leaders (and often they are the 'loud' ones) but actually have little respect from the others in their group - sometimes this too is adults and so can be quite tricky to challenge (especially when our own trainers are young people - which in itself presents interesting situations where we have young people leading training but adults will exclude themselves from the process because they don't want to be 'led' by young people (so they fall back on the 'empowering' thing as above)).

I think the adult thing is very relevant because while the focus may be on youth leadership who do they look to for their examples? Who leads their clubs and activities? And are those people effective leaders and do they understand the different aspects of effective leadership? Something to consider maybe if a 'youth programme' is going to have a real impact on young people.

The very concept of Leadership begs more than a few questions as, I think, you suggest.  Crucially, the issue is leadership in the service of whom and to what purpose? There is an important tradition of collective and circulating leadership, which is more or less ignored. Leadership as practised in this hierarchical and exploitative world is not something I'm that impressed by. To be honest do you really want any young person to turn out to be a cynical, ruthless egotist like Branson? Are you suggesting that figures such as Bush[or indeed Obama or Clinton], Blair or Brown, Sarkozy or Putin, for they are our world leaders, understand the world any better than ordinary folk do?  In this context it might be more useful if we educated ourselves and young people about the dangers of leadership, about the consequences of hubris and power. It might be interesting to have a National Institute of Collective Resistance and Solidarity.

The true leader wishes to relinquish her leadership at the very first opportunity.

All of which rant is not to ignore that Mike makes more than a few good points, so let the debate continue.

But, for the moment, No Gods, No Bosses, No Leaders.....

and so we ask who the hell are these experts from all sections of civic life and add, when it comes to youth work and politics, No More Experts! None of us are experts, we merely express an opinion.

I'd agree that its that impression of leadership that people find off putting - the idea of a single person leading the masses preaching from the front.

All the people you mention are good leaders (not necessarily good people!) - but that style of leadership is a very limited one.

Leadership is much broader and its not always about being the figurehead at the front - sometimes its about planting seeds, or supporting others to take action. Its also not always about leading large groups of people - when you're being treated badly do you take control of the situation and take the lead or do you allow others to dictate to you? When you do try to take the lead do you do it by bossing people around or by trying to empathise with them and appeal to their better interests?

I agree to a point that good leaders will readily relinquish their leadership - but they'll do so at an appropriate time - and equally to their willingness to relinquish needs to be their willingness to embrace it - if people can work together this way it will be far more effective than groups wehere nobody takes the lead (and arguably where only one person does).

What I do disagree with is that 'none of us are experts' - our interpretation of expertise may be relative but I think thats a very bad message to put across to young people - everyone should have dreams and ambitions and everyone should strive to master something - be that their job, their hobby or simply getting on with people - without these people to admire and respect who do we aspire to be?

Just to say I meant specifically that there are no experts in the realm of politics. There's an old Greek proverb that goes something like this:

Zeus is sorting out the world and giving out talents. So he grants that this person will be a musician, another a carpenter, even a youth worker and so on.. But when it comes to the matter of politics, what decisions should we make together for the common good, he makes everyone equally talented.

You're obviously right to stress the importance of young people, all of us developing particular expertise, but, you must forgive me, if I remain deeply suspicious of the cult of the expert, which pervades contemporary life. Again when it comes to issues of democracy and participation, the idea that there are experts in the form of politicians is patently absurd. There is a significant difference between the idea of the expert and the concept of having expertise.

As for needing people that we admire and respect, you are right, but  again this is not straightforwardly to do with looking up to experts.

I agree with you about the fluid nature of leadership. In my own experience one moment I I may be leading, the next being led. Although I think that in describing the people I mentioned as good leaders [if not good people] you are sidestepping my point about what might be the vision or motivation of the leader.

Best get out in the open air and do some reconnaissance, I'm leading a walk on Saturday!?!

lol!

Yes thats really interesting about whether its possible to have a different style of 'world leadership' or leadership of the masses - makes me wonder too about whether the resistance to that kind of political leadership is practised by many people in this country ie. they don't vote because they're not interested or they don't see that these people are important to them - how many of us see Gordon Brown as our true leader?

Personally I never really think of politicians as 'leaders' - in my eyes they're accountable back to me - I see them as public servants which I guess is on the same level of thinking as what you're saying.

I think some of the key things about political leadership are representation and accountability (both lacking?). Theres a real question at the moment about the professionalism of politics - we've done some work with the UK Youth Parliament and its very revealing seeing young people who are potentially really good leaders with genuine changes they'd like to campaign for, and its interesting how these compare to young people who are very much 'acting the politician' - they have the moves, they speak in a certain way and they look very much the clone of MP's. More worrying than this is seeing the change in some young people after they've been involved with the UKYP and how much more of a 'professional politician' they've become. I think all of this media training & professionalism somehow detaches politics from the people its supposed to represent - we're not seeing community leaders emerge and going on to fight our cause - instead we're seeing people enter into a professional industry (which they may study & train for for years) in which we have some limited interest or concern.

Anyway what I really meant was I don't think political leadership is the interesting part - leadership at a local level is much more interesting and maybe more important too?

I really like the Zeus description - and the idea he created youth workers ;-)