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"As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people persmission to do the same." - Nelson Mandela

 

Societal leadership begins inside of one's self. It begins by exploring reflective questions like: What are my values? What am I here on Earth for? What am I passionate about at this time and place?

Youth are particularly challenged to comprehend these deep introspective questions simply because of their short length of time on earth. Generally speaking, their worldviews are rapidly changing through experience and brain development as compared to our elders. Indeed, a few people are born with a known destiny (i.e. to be a rock star, an accountant or a farmer) which guides them through youth but the majority of us experienced youth as a journey slowly winding us closer to our purpose.

It is my belief that to discern our purpose and act on it is to enable our full human potential (to activate societal leadership). Should societal leadership proliferate today, the implications are extraordinary for posterity. The key ingredient: passion.

Are there ways to support youth in finding their passion? What sustainable creation could emerge if all of our youth were societal leaders?

In addressing these two questions, the intention of this blog post is twofold: to share the learning of a collaborative project that LeadWell Initiative has been part of and to tell the story of the project's development.

To address the latter, the project was to convene a group of champions in a series of conversations on connecting youth to their passion. Its birth was due solely to synchronicity following a previous LeadWell Initiative blog post titled "Unearthing the Youth Voice on Societal Leadership." An international project team (Elise Bouvy and Bieke van Dijk from Brussels, Bas Kools from Berlin and myself, Matt Mayer from Calgary) formed around the same burning question: What sustainable creation is possible if youth are connected to their passion? Employing the Chaordic Stepping Stones to frame our process of moving from question to collaborative intention, we eventually landed on our two-part global conversational project on connecting youth to their passion.

Once we booked dates and invited participants, our planning (and collaboration) accelerated.

President Obama, a celebrated orator, hit the mark yet again on October 16th at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial dedication ceremonies (video and transcript). At a time when the world is witnessing natural disaster, war, protest, politicking, economic injustice and more, Obama was cleverly able to link Martin Luther King's (MLK) social change hardships to that of current movements whilst never detracting from the celebration of MLK himself.

MLK's life was filled with lessons in leadership proven by his inclusion in almost every leadership manuscript during and after his time. In our experience, when we discuss societal leadership, indeed MLK is often a key example. Naturally, Obama's address was filled with leadership lessons and here we will extract the key societal leadership learnings.

As Alberta wakes up this week to the much-heralded prospect of political change from within following Allison Redford's victory in the leadership race for the provincial Progressive Conservative party, there is a cautionary note about how much will change and how fast.

This, we well know, is the challenge of change: it rarely meets expectations.

Most new leaders with a change agenda, regardless of sector or political beliefs, face the "100 day" test. It's an unfair and arbitrary amount of time by which to judge the leader's overall ability to drive and sustain change, but it's usually the litmus test we use to see whether they're moving in the direction they said they would. It defies common logic, however, to think that any leader of a significant effort can accomplish even a small quantum of change within such a period.