The best advice I could give to the leaders of tomorrow is that there are no easy answers , no “one size fits all”. What I can tell you about being a leader is that you need to understand how both to lead and how to follow. That might sound counterintuitive, but there are times when in order to be a good leader you need to listen to other people and be a follower, and there are other times when you need to step up and take charge of the situation and lead. The key is to identify the type of situation and to act accordingly. So starting at the bottom being a follower and working up to being a leader will work just fine . On the other hand, starting off being a team captain can work for you as long as you don’t forget to trade places and be a follower as well. The key type of leadership style as we move forward in this century is a catalytic, and collaborative based leadership style that is based on soft skills and personality. Indeed, interpersonal skills and speaking skills will start to be more and more important moving forward in the modern world. The ability to handle new technology or develop new business acumen can always be learnt; the most difficult commodity to handle is the human commodity of people—other human beings—the capacity to get along with others, and to get others to accomplish a task, that is critical, that is what true leadership is. You should take advantage of every single experience you have. Embrace interactions with all different types of people, you will learn from every interaction you have – and each interaction will help shape you into an even better leader! As a teenager , the world is your “oyster” , and you must go out and grab it !– go and join a youth group in your church, or girl or boy scout group, or wilderness group, or sports team or all of those groups in order to gain some breadth and depth of experience in the art of how to be a leader and a follower.
