1. The Facilitation of Professional Leadership Development in a
Youth Organizations: A Case Study of Victoria University’s
Students Association (VUWSA).
Introduction
Most of the leadership development1 literature and practice have been conducted in
the area of professional work settings, but very few studies have been carried out in
youth organizations (Bowen & Shapiro, 1998; Wagner, 2006) such as students’
associations. Various authors believed that the skills for effective leadership are
learnt from experience rather than formal training programmes (McCall et al, 1988).
Therefore, the professional development of leadership in youth organizations is quite
a new concept.
So how can VUWSA2 implement professional leadership development among their
staff? What are the requirements to adapt professional leadership development to
youth organizations?
This literature review will investigate various issues regarding the development of
leadership in youth organizations based on the relevant literature. Leadership learning
programmes are argued to be a key to unlocking the myth of developing leadership
(Kouzes and Posner, 1995). As a result of students reflecting upon experiences as
leadership development opportunities, they are able to more fully develop their
understanding and practice of leadership (Boatman, 1999; Densten & Gray, 2001).
The nature of youth organizations and the reasons why it is difficult to develop
leadership in young people will also be discussed.
This paper will argue that professional leadership development can be learnt and
developed in youth organizations. As leadership is seen as a key ingredient for future
1
Explores the systemic which leaders and followers operate and seeks to intervene to enhance
effectiveness – focuses on the intervention to develop interpersonal skills.
2
VUWSA is the official representative body for students studying at Victoria University. We have
over 18,500 members and work on the principle that the best people to represent the interests of
students are students themselves
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2. success, it is proposed that VUWSA must focus on their staff members’ leadership
skills and not base their choice purely on technical expertise (Earley, 2000).
Leadership
Leadership is ill-define concept. There are thousands of meaning on leadership.
According to research in practice (2006) a traditional view of leaders is about
individualistic. The individual should have vision to drive people to achieve a specific
goal. The contemporary meaning of leadership is about collective mind, drawing
people together and achieving goals with the same desire. Leadership meaning is not
static concept and for youth leadership, the concept is different. We do not see youth
as a leader yet rather as a future leader (MacNeil, 2006). Therefore the development
of youth leadership is needed in our society.
Learning Leadership:
Although many scholars might argue that leaders are born and not made, learning
leadership is not an impossible concept. The focus on training leadership is being
shifted away, because there has been relatively little research on its effectiveness
(Kress, 2006), and being replaced by development and education3.
Weielkiewiez (2000) admits that volunteering for service organization is associated
with system thinking skills, which are critical for leadership effectiveness. Astin
(1985) suggests that getting involved in the University’s activities has positive
impacts on leadership development. In addition, Ulrich et al (1999) does not focus
entirely on the learning aspect of the development of leadership, but also discuss the
importance of consideration of how behaviour needs to change if people are to
become more effective leaders.
Thus, the development of leadership tries to implement leadership practice into youth
organizations so that they can learn and develop by making sense of self through their
own experiences. Therefore, a key development issue appears to be helping people to
learn how to learn from experience (Kress, 2006).
3
An emphasis oriented towards conscious awareness of social patterns that produces insight into
knowledge, ideals, insights and experiences that shape individual and group beliefs and values, to
enable collective integration into collective goals (Barker, 1997).
2

3. Experiences from interacting with the other people within the organization will allow
individuals to recognise themselves and their identities in the context of others’
expectations (Ashforth and Kreiner, 1999). These experiences also enable people to
make sense and distinguish the quality of the informal experiences happening in their
everyday activities, this appears to be a critical means to individual leadership
development (Hartley et al., 2003).
However, Chan Kim and Mauborgne (2003) state that leadership development in
many organizations is based on a position where the manager is seen as a leader,
because the employees have to commit to a manager’s decision. Power distance is
thus vital in the development of leadership, because the power distance creates the
environment in which such leadership cannot thrive (Bowerman, 2003). “They say
they are concerned about developing leaders, when in reality they feel more secure
with managers. The art of leadership development is still in its infancy” (Conger,
1996: 57).
The task of developing youth leaders is a matter of creating environments that will
nurture capacities for leadership and helping youth to let go of the self-interest that
gets in the way in organizations and to show them how to respond to present
organizational needs.
Nature of Youth Organizations
Many youth organizations have implemented leadership development through field
trips or conferences. However, leadership development is not an event, but should be
an integrated process within an organization therefore organizational support
networks are needed to reinforce leadership development (Conger and Benjamin,
1999). VUWSA leadership development is not happening in VUWSA because the
interaction between the member and followers (students) does not happen.
In addition, a difficulty that youth organizations face is their short leadership cycles as
short leadership development processes are ineffective (Alimo-Metcalfe and Lawler,
2001). Short leadership cycles result in the loss of organizational goal and direction.
The continuous change in leadership in youth organizations such as VUWSA on an
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4. annual basis constrains the development of leadership, because teamwork ability, their
understanding of the roles, and a sense of doing meaningful things within the
organization are unlikely to occur (Kress, 2006).
As a result of this time constraint many of the youth organizations unintentionally
develop leadership in a traditional way. They concentrate on individual rather than
modern trends in leadership theory, that being the movement away from the concept
of leadership residing in one person towards a concept of leadership residing in the
relationship between and among individuals (Astin & Leland, 1991). There is not
enough time to gain any advantage experience which has a direct negative effect on
youth leadership in the future.
Without advantage experience, a young leader can easily be under pressure by the
tasks that are given or the followers, resulting in the discouragement to the other
youth that want to be leaders one day. The development of leadership in youth
organizations needs a professional leadership development approach on issues of
decision-making power and influence (MacNeil, 2006) because youth often fail to see
themselves as actors in decision-making processes (Kress, 2006).
The understanding of leadership within the organization is quite underdeveloped and
there exist different views about leadership (Alimo-Metcalfe and Lawler, 2001). For
example, VUWSA only refer to ‘leadership’ with regard to the position of the
President of the organization. This reflects a lack of understanding that leadership
takes place at all levels in the organization especially with students association,
because each of the members represents students in different issues. Cohen and Tichy
(1997) and Senga (1992) state that work in the learning organization suggests leaders
are needed at all levels.
What Goes Wrong With Youth Leadership Development?
The American researchers Confer (1993) and Fulmer (1997) show that leadership
development in non-profit organization and youth organization is illogical and
disorganized, possibly because all people perceive leadership differently (McKibben,
2004). The notion of leadership development is then found to be problematic when
applied to different organizations (Pittaway, Rivera & Murphy, 2005).
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5. The concept of leadership is largely drawn on much of the literature, both popular and
scholarly, and it is focussed heavily on adult leadership development and practice.
There is little research regarding youth leadership development. Bass (1981), well
known for his views on leadership, failed to mention youth leadership or the
development of youth leadership. Thus the notion of adult leadership4 and the youth
leadership5 in literature are quite different.
The American study (Davis, 1997) refers to youth leadership as having a future
orientation. Youth are not leaders but have the potential to develop leadership skills
that will be necessary to be effective leaders in future. Most of the leadership
development programme is then designed to develop the competencies considered to
be important in leaders (Kress, 2006). This is believed to derive from trait theory
'great man' or 'implicit' theory of leadership where it assumes that certain behaviours
are required for leadership. This means that certain people are born with a set of key
personality characteristics which make them 'natural' leaders (Research in practice,
2006). If this is true the development of leadership is not a possible concept.
This calls for attention to leadership development in young people, to rethink youth
leadership development as something beneficial to society as a whole (Olsen et al.,
2004) and to see youth for what they have to offer not just what they need. By
exploring youth need, they can develop leadership in their meaningful way.
For this reason, several studies suggest that youth development of leadership should
be the opportunity not only to develop skills and knowledge but also to apply, practice
(Kress, 2006; MacNeil, 2006) and acquire a sense of importance from doing
significant things and from being active participants (Kohn, 1994: 282) as a role
rather a position (Davis, 1997).
4
Focuses on issues of authority: how do, and how should, leaders apply those skills to real-life
situations where significant consequences are at stake (MacNeil, 2006).
5
Focuses on ability: how do, and how should, educators support youth in development of specific
leadership skills (MacNeil, 2006).
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6. The final comment is that leaders are not born rather made through our experiences.
Most leadership scholars also agree that it is possible to grow the leadership
competence of individual for leadership role (Research in practice, 2006).
Future Direction
The development of leadership in youth is a realistic concept but there is rare
evidence of its effectiveness. It appears that leadership can be developed and learnt
only through experiences. It is also important to remember that the combinations of
age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, life experience, and other factors are needed
to be considered in the development of leadership.
In addition, very few studies have been published on youth leadership and the
development of youth leadership. Most of the theories are based on professional
leadership development and there is very little evidence as to whether professional
leadership development practice can be transferred to youth organizations.
But it is widely known that organisations can take steps to improve the quality of their
leadership. It is also widely acknowledged that 'the child will never learn to ride the
bike unless she is given a bike to learn on. That is, people need practical opportunities
to develop their leadership competence (Research in practice, 2006).
As there is not consensus on the best way to develop leadership, it is a challenging
task to assess which method is best used to develop leaders in youth organizations.
There is no single way to describe leadership, therefore it is quite difficult to capture
the meaning of leadership from young people’s perspective without hearing from
them personally. Some of the literature is very important in the study of youth
leadership development, but the development of leadership concept is broad and some
leadership development literature is irrelevant to the study of youth leadership and its
development.
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