Foundations for the future: growing leaders

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

by Meredith Akuhata-Brown

Meredith Akuhata-Brown

“Leaders of tomorrow, leaders for today” is the theme for this year’s Youth Week which happens to be this week.

When I think about youth and leadership, I often consider: who do our youth think of as leaders?

In all my years of supporting and working alongside youth I believe that the biggest influencing factor in leadership is parents. Many of the young people I have journeyed with come from single-parent families where the main parent is often a mum.

Much of the research around the first thousand days of a child’s life talks about the foundations for their entire future. Evidence shows it is critical to invest in the first 1000 days so that every child gets the strongest start in life. We must act early.

Creating future leaders and leadership is an amazing role, however it is vital to consider what we do before conception, as being prepared for the life-changing experience of becoming a parent is important.

Some of the students I support often share a laugh that their dad “went to the dairy and never came back”. But the sadness and heartbreak of not having a dad in their lives is evident. Many of our fatherless sons grow up struggling with a sense of abandonment and low self-esteem.

So while a large percentage of our youth come from challenging circumstances, I know for a fact that the truism “it takes a village to raise a child” can have positive impacts on growing leaders.

My own personal experience of the “village” is that it has been a key contribution to my growth and development, and the diversity of those I connected to imparted to me a bigger life picture.

Tairāwhiti has a large youth population and we have many agencies that work to support our youth to grow, learn and succeed. Within this large population we have some of the most talented and amazing young people; many overcome adversity to succeed in sports, education and career pathways.

With a constantly changing landscape, our youth are faced with challenges that I know I never had when I was young. Social media has probably been one of the biggest impacts on the lives of our youth today. Hospitalisations for teen girls with eating disorders have spiked since 2012 when social media became ubiquitous. Us Gen-Xers laugh about our childhood when we didn’t suffer from “FOMO” (fear of missing out) as we simply did not know we were missing out. We had landlines governed by parents and calling friends was mostly vocal as they lived in your neighbourhood and over the fence.

Leadership today and tomorrow is also a changing landscape based on the complexities of issues facing us all now and in the future. With pressing matters such as climate change and inequality amidst new IT including AI, VR and robotic technologies, anyone in leadership has to be capable of adapting and influencing.

A recent Forbes magazine article about leadership stated this:

“In 2023 more than ever, leaders need to be less strategy experts and more human experts. In other words, leaders need to become experts in why people do what they do, if they want to help their people act differently. Ultimately, leadership is about intentional influencing of behavioural change. Leaders don’t influence outcomes; they influence humans to act in ways that drive outcomes. Behaviour change is the job of a leader.”

This is where the village is important, as influencing behaviour requires a community.

Leaders of tomorrow and leaders for today need purposeful guidance that encourages and inspires integral leadership.