Your high school years are a great time to begin learning how to be a good leader. There are numerous opportunities for acquiring key leadership skills. Many of them are available in places where you’d least expect. All you need to do is keep your eyes and mind open to the possibilities.
Here’s a list to get you started on accruing your leadership experience:
- Generate leadership opportunities on your own. Believe it or not, many leadership opportunities are right close to home. For instance, you could offer to mow lawns, design a website, watch pets, or clean homes for residents in your neighborhood. Running such a business would automatically make you a leader of your “company.” It would help you learn how to attract and keep clients, stay on schedule, keep your word, and perform a job according to agreed-upon specifications. The leadership skills you learn from engaging in these activities may come in handy later in your career life whether you manage a small team at a family-owned store or dozens of employees at a Fortune 500 company.
- Find leadership opportunities on social media platforms. Most organizations and programs will likely have a social media presence. Many of these places will be seeking assistance in managing their social media channels with such roles as administrators, editors and moderators. Responsibilities could include: selecting what content to upload to a particular social media site, creating an image or crafting the language for the post, and/or making sure that discourse within the comment thread remains civil. Taking on one of these multifaceted positions can be a great opportunity to learn “how to lead online.”
- Explore jobs outside of school as a leadership training ground. As an employee who’s not a manager, you can learn plenty of leadership skills in a starter job. Let’s say you do your fast-food job well. Your supervisor may decide to give you a higher level of responsibility that could include: entrusting you with the key or code to unlock the restaurant and let employees in, getting the space prepped for the day and open for business, closing out the cash drawer, depositing cash revenue at the bank, or greeting customers at the entrance.
- Join school clubs and/or programs that offer leadership positions or training. It’s important to research, explore, and consider school club or program possibilities. For example, even if you may not want to join the military, you still may want to consider participating in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC). A program like this can teach you a lot about being an effective leader, and you might just find you have an interest in military service after all. Another program that may prove beneficial for gaining leadership skills is the Future Business Leaders of America. As a third option, your school system may offer leadership camps that can help you develop leadership skills in a broad range of areas. In addition, you may find leadership opportunities on the school newspaper or yearbook, where editing positions are available, as well as leadership opportunities in local programs such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.
- Look into whether your place of worship (if you attend one) or local community center offers leadership training for youth. Many houses of worship and community centers provide leadership opportunities that can include leading younger children in classes or as a summer camp counselor. Another option may be serving as a chaperone on faith-based local field or travel-abroad trips.
As a final suggestion: Be sure not to shy away from researching virtual jobs and internships. Good ones are definitely out there. However, use caution and check things out thoroughly to avoid the occasional scam.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways, even as a teen, to gain and develop your leadership skills. All you have to do, is put in the effort to seek out and seize these learning opportunities. Using a list like this one will get you well on your way to experiencing leadership!
