Being able to choose your high school curriculum is a great way to develop the skills you need. Thus, there are many programs for high school children nowadays, and parents find it hard to tackle through all of them, especially those whose children leave this to their parents’ decision.
Some of the traits in leaders are more emphasized than in people that hold other roles. However, leadership is not only about the position you have in a corporation or a business; it is about oneself first of all.
- A person driven to achieve, to motivate, to initiate.
- A person motivated to lead and transmit his knowledge.
- A high sense of honesty and integrity.
- Good emotional stability enables them to find the self–confidence so much needed when leading.
How can a leadership program help your high school child?
The leadership programs usually prepare students to become more independent, reliable people for the future and ready for a successful career.
Are leadership skills born, or are they taught and developed?
The answer is in the middle, but developing you with leadership skills will help you make the best use of them. This type of program will use mechanisms that support the personality to reach its potential. And a leadership program will help students develop their leadership skills in a more formal environment where they learn from experienced leaders.
It can help:
- Develop the cognitive abilities that will help students be more motivated and accomplish their goals later in life.
Confidence plays an essential role in leadership traits. A student who has confidence in his abilities will execute the leadership role without thinking he needs to be perfect to succeed. The very thing of believing in one’s mission and knowing the goals along with confidence will help make a great leader.
- Develop their leadership styles as they participate in different leadership roles across the classroom.
- Develop essential life skills – such as resilience, empathy, and resourcefulness.
Resilience is vital as a leadership role may sometimes encounter difficulties which one will have to face and overcome. Effectively dealing with failure and assess what things went wrong will help one become a better leader.
An empathetic child and person will be able to build and maintain stronger relationships. It is a personality trait that one is born with, and we can observe it since little, but it needs help to be developed appropriately.
Resourcefulness is a great way to come up with new ways of contributing to the outside world. A leadership program will help students face different situations and figure out how to deal with obstacles they may encounter.
- Increase emotional control
Our emotions play an essential role in everyday life, and learning to control them will help us deal with various people and situations. More than being a good leader, having better emotional control makes one more likable and ethical.
Leader in Me program
There are various leadership programs that you can choose for your high school child. One of them is the Leader in Me program with different levels depending on the child’s grade – elementary, middle, or high – school.
This program is based on the See – Do – Get cycle. This theory of change states that “when you change the way you See things, it influences what you Do and the results you Get.” (leaderinme.org/what-is-leader-in-me)
Online or offline, this program offers the opportunity for students to take on leadership roles and discover their inner voice and character. A great way to follow this program is through the Spark hybrid high school’s Leadership Program. Here they focus on five core paradigms:
- Everyone can be a leader.
- Everyone has genius.
- Change starts with me.
- Educators empower students to lead their learning.
- Develop the whole person.
A good leadership program will make students deal with real responsibilities.
Placing students in real leadership roles and holding them accountable for the outcome of their projects is a great way to form a successful leader. Successes and failures are a part of everyday life, and as a leader, one may encounter with them more than usual. So being able to know how to handle an outcome of a project and trying to deliver the best results possible is important.
A good leadership program will help students see that leadership is not only about a formal position of authority. It starts with leading one’s own life and continues with encouraging greatness in others.