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We don’t expect much from youth so that’s what we get

Matt Beard

by Matt Beard

05 Nov 05:55am

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Filed under: Generation Y, Leadership, Mark Zuckerberg, Social Media, Youth, Youth Issues

41 comments

In an interview discussing his increasing philanthropy late last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noted that “when you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.”

Facebook, for Zuckerberg, has a role to play in power systems. It can be a political tool for leaders. And he’s right, but only conditionally; a number of other groups need to come to the party before we can consider social media a tool for good.

I spent a recent weekend helping Year 11 students understand what it means to be a leader, and I can safely say that I don’t share the pessimism about our future that the majority of headlines concerning ‘young Australians’ seems to show. But nor can I say in good conscience that the future is all roses.

These students, hand-picked from schools in the Mitchell Electorate in Sydney’s Hills District, attended the annual Mitchell Youth Leadership Forum. Now in its 10th year, the forum was founded by former MP Alan Cadman to help foster leadership skills amongst those on whom we will eventually rely.

Each year the calibre of the students is extremely high – high enough not to make jokes at the forum’s acronym (M.Y.L.F.) – and I left inspired at this group of young people, but not without concerns.

The inspiration came from their intentions; so often headlines about young people are overwhelmingly negative: Dangerous driving, underage drinking, bullying, sexting. The media doesn’t paint a pretty picture of our nation’s youth. But the students themselves spoke of their desire to help the people around them, their frustration at the amount of issues facing young people (they heard speakers on eating disorders, drug addiction, and unsafe driving, all in the context of learning leadership), and mostly, their inability to solve the many needs they see screaming for help.

At one point, one of the older speakers misspoke, calling Twitter ‘Tweeter’, much to the amusement of the students. Although he didn’t notice his mistake, the speaker’s unfamiliarity with social media was a noticeable divide between him and the students, so prominent a role does it play in young people’s lives today.

As a common denominator, surely social media could be a powerful tool in young leadership?

But in my experience, the impact of social media on leadership skills has been negative. Like email or text messaging, social media gives yet another non-face-to-face means of communication. Having done youth work, grown up in the email/text/instant messenger age, and having four younger siblings, I’ve learned that these less personal communication mediums become a shield for young people: a safe place to have hard conversations.

Our future leaders are learning – literally – not to face their problems, but to deal with them at arm’s length, from behind a screen, because it’s what easy, and because nobody is telling them that it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work because hard conversations and big issues aren’t just solved with words, thoughts and arguments. They’re also solved with feelings; not just having feelings, but reading them, mobilising them, harnessing them.

‘Gen-Tech’ is losing that. They still have emotions - powerful ones - but they’re not sure how to use them. What I learned from my weekend with the leaders of the future is that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. They want to do whatever they can to help the world around them, but nobody is telling them how to do it.

Having listened to health activist Melinda Hutchings speak of her battles with anorexia, students broke into discussion groups for a chance at deeper reflection. Melinda had been inspiring and insightful; I was excited at the prospective discussion.

“So what did everyone think?”

Everyone loved her. Excellent. Here we go!

“What in particular hit home with you guys?”

Silence. In fact, given we were sitting outdoors at a conference centre in Arcadia, I could actually hear crickets chirping through the silence.

I don’t blame the students for their silence, nor am I criticising them; after a lot of hard work and probing questions they were unable to give voice to what had struck a chord with them. It was the fact that Melinda had allowed them to see eating disorders - of whom most knew someone battling one - in a new light; not new information, but a new perspective.

She had told them that they could do something to help. I asked them how they might go about giving that help. Cue the crickets. It hit me hard: these are students with a powerful will to help, but feel powerless to actually do it. Young Australians are our nation’s untapped resource.

All this is not necessarily the fault of social media - look at the role it’s played in the Middle East - but it’s the fault of social media in an environment in which young people have no responsibilities placed on them.

We don’t expect much of young people, and that’s exactly what we get. Leadership is not a trait; it’s a skill, and one that takes years to learn. But somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that if our young people just stay in school, and then go out to universities, apprenticeships and assistant manager positions, then they’ll be ready to lead our nation into the future when the need arises.

But good will and externally imposed responsibility does not a leader make (just look at the on-the-job leadership problems that Julia Gillard has faced). We as a society need to start teaching our students to lead, now.

If we don’t start teaching now, then we can’t keep wondering why our young people keep getting into mischief. Despite all the progress we’ve made, in a lot of ways young Australians are still expected to be seen and not heard; to wait their turn while the grown-ups work. Can we really blame them for acting out? Diamonds are forged under pressure, and we keep lightening the load on our future’s coal.

The Forum’s closing speaker was Brett Murray. Brett shot to national fame when he took ten of Macquarie Fields’ most troublesome students over Kokoda Trek. He forced those students to face the reality that they were responsible for their own actions and survival. A number of those students now work with Brett reforming other ‘trouble students’. They’ve become leaders because somebody took the time to tell them how to do it.

That’s the key to our future; to show students how to deal with their feelings, how to use them; to get them to use the internet, and not to rely on it, and to trust our own ability to teach. In teaching our future, we take some responsibility for it. It’s easier to whinge and blame. But that’s not what leaders do.

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41 comments

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    • acotrel says:

      05:44am | 05/11/11

      There is an old saying ‘don’t tell us what we can’t do, tell us what we can’ !  Leadership is about motivating, encouraging, and facilitating.  It is important to ‘lead by example’.  If you actually step out and lead, others will follow you.  If you want to stand at the rear and direct, you might dodge the bullets, but if the delegation is faulty, the project could fail.  Establishing the policy guidelines clearly, is important.
      When leading a team it’s always better to facilitate by asking questions rather than by making statements.  You could have to defend a ‘rant and rave’, questions make your followers accountable. Directive management has it’s place - only in a crisis !
      This is all basic management practice however, unfortunately most of our leaders are not formally trained in the discipline.

      Reply

    • Jeremy says:

      06:56am | 05/11/11

      I agree with so much of what you say. Having done adolescence not a huge stone throw ago, it is a time of such paralyzingly contradictory messages from our parents that it does become a huge frustration trying to work out what they want from you. I figured that it had something to do with the previous generation growing up through such a time of liberation and loud voices that they’ve just never learnt to pipe down.
      p.s. And to all those people who keep saying, ‘enjoy school, it all gets harder from here, etc.’, I.C.B. It’s an awful period of your life, both school and teen-hood, working life is more fulfilling, it’s easier, and you have more control and relevance.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      08:37am | 05/11/11

      @Jeremy
      It sometimes helps to look at difficult situations as ‘an opportunity for improvement’ !

    • Chris L says:

      09:16am | 05/11/11

      I agree so much with that last statement. School, to me, was a zoo where the most important skill to learn is how to avoid being eaten (figuratively, of course).

      I did poorly in my studies (being somewhat distracted by bullying from students, teachers and faculty) and hence don’t have a great career, and yet I have enjoyed my independant adulthood far more than the tempestuous chaos of school!

    • AdamC says:

      12:32pm | 05/11/11

      I dunno, Jeremy. Most of my friends (many of whom I went to high school with) loved that period of their lives. I didn’t. The whole gay thing didn’t help, in my case, but I contend that you can pretty much divide the adult population into those that hated high school and those who loved it. Call it a self-serving theory, but I suspect those whose minds mature earlier tend to be more likely to dislike high school. Conformity, rote learning, and an imperative to please authority figures is what I remember most from high school.

      And you are spot on that the beginning of one’s career is a great time in one’s life. Alas, it isn’t long before things start to get serious ...

    • Rose says:

      09:03pm | 05/11/11

      AdamC I am most definitely calling it a self serving theory! Kids who mature early may actually be the ones who are able to get the most enjoyment and benefit out of school. They often are fully aware of what they intend to do post-school and are happily working hard to set themselves up. I also think enjoyment at school is often also a product of the quality and culture of the school Schools that encourage kids to aim high, to think outside the square, to participate in extra-curricular activities, to work hard but also have fun are schools that will be remembered fondly. Schools that just plod along will never see their students succeed to tyhe same degree, and will not be remembered fondly by those students.

    • amy says:

      05:35pm | 06/11/11

      I know right? Im much happyer now than I was in school, I mean seriously, what a dumb thing to say to a bunch of emo kids…and they woner why some teens are depressed

    • Trevor says:

      07:09am | 05/11/11

      I blame Whitney Houston for this sense of self importance that kids have these days:

      “I believe the children are the future…blah, blah blah”.

      Might as well sing “I believe that food will be for breakfast”. One of the most self-evident truths ever corrupted in the name of pop music.

      A bit of a change from ‘kids should be seen and not heard’ which was the way I grew up.

      Reply

    • mick says:

      07:26am | 05/11/11

      After a lifetime teaching senior students I have to respectfully disagree.  I always ‘expected’ more than lip service from my students but in most cases it was clear that the education system did not cater for those who ‘chose’ not to engage.  Students progress through the system whether they learn or not.

      Gen y is different to the baby boomer generation, as every generation is different from the preceding one.  The tech revolution is this generation’s thing and it has impacted on social interaction and behaviour, both good and bad. 

      In the end blame parents who are too busy having fun to worry about their children or a society which turns a blind eye and puts no consequences in place for the failure of many children to develop normally.  We are all a product of our environment and this is why parents especially have a most fundamental role in creating a well rounded person.  Most fail miserably in this task and the products are there for all to see.  I wish it were not so.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      08:59am | 05/11/11

      @mick
      ‘The tech revolution is this generation’s thing and it has impacted on social interaction and behaviour, both good and bad.  ‘

      The tech revolution has by-passed Australia, and our munufacturing industry has gone offshore.  What are kids going to do for work using their hi-tech skills ?  Will the fly jet aeroplanes, or become help desk assistants for an IT company. Most of them cannot even write a simple computer programe, in a high level language, and any dodo can use the current application software.  I am qualified as an industrial chemist, have a look in the paper or on the web, and see how many jobs are available.
      We had it, and we lost it !

    • marley says:

      09:14am | 05/11/11

      @mick - but “leadership” is a different issue from engaging with the school system.  Someone can be a marginal student academically, and still have leadership abilities;  someone can be a gifted student and be unable to lead at any level.  I can think of plenty of examples of both.

    • malohi says:

      07:58am | 05/11/11

      You want the youth to grow to be leaders. Amazing, did not need 543 paragraphs.

      Reply

    • Seve says:

      09:55am | 05/11/11

      These youth will never be true leaders until millions of people click their “like” button, their home page have more than a few thousand views and they’re getting a commission from google ads.

    • Chris_D says:

      02:38pm | 05/11/11

      @malhoi, at least you got something from that waffle. 

      My original comment didn’t even get posted, but I asked what the point of the whole article was. 

      It drfited between Mark Zuckerberg gave some money and said something, then mentioned that if you hand pick the top students to attend a leadership forum you will get a more positive outlook than listening to the vast majority of todays adolescnts, through to an ending with some hypocrisy about social media being bad, but it can also be good.

      Like I said in my original comment, “And the point is….?”

    • John A Neve says:

      08:10am | 05/11/11

      I found this a most confusing article. Here we had a group of “hand-picked” students on “whom we will eventually rely”.
      Leaders in my view a born not bred, this view is well supported by centuries
      of Kings, Queens, Emperors etc who without doubt lack any form of leadership skils other than blood-lines and a sword.
      Yet another example is the fact that Field Commissions were created as those that bought commissions were often found wanting!
      Sadly (a word I use often), this whole article smells of the born or bred to rule syndrome and is not one I’d ever support.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      08:50am | 05/11/11

      @John,
      The difference between a leader and others, is primarily motivation.  Sir John Monash had it, but his leadership skills were learnt from experience using his engineer’s judgement of results.  It is possible to motivate people by using psychology, and the reward sytem.  However I agree with you that selecting people by personal preference, then tailoring them for leadership, is pretty down.  It occurrs today in small businesses. Often an entrepreneur is successful, but when he hands the business over to his kid, it goes to pot !
      It’s a reason I find employee share ownership programmes attractive.  They have the potential to motivate workers.

    • marley says:

      09:08am | 05/11/11

      I don’t see anything of the “born to rule” syndrome in this article at all.  The students were picked on the basis of what were judged to be their leadership qualities, not their pedigree.  How else would you identify potential leaders and teach them leadership skills?

      Your own comment is far more confusing than the article.

    • John A Neve says:

      11:35am | 05/11/11

      Acotrel,
      I think Sir John’s leadership skills were inherent, added by his time in the army, and possibly his education. His work in forming the SECV and the fact that he was muted as a future PM indicated great leadership qualities.

      Marley,
      The “students were picked on the basis of what were judged to be their leadership qualities,not their pedigree”! I am surprised, based on the article they came from one area and one age group and you are suggesting they already had “leadership qualities”. Surely the very fact that at such a young age they were “chosen” speaks for itself?
      Pray tell just how do you “identify potential leaders” Marley?

    • marley says:

      12:05pm | 05/11/11

      @John Neve - as I read the article, this is a youth leadership forum in one specific electorate, and all the schools in the electorate feed into it.  It’s not pretending to be a national leadership forum, just one for local kids. I don’t see why you think that’s elitist, unless you believe that all the kids in the district should have been able to attend.  I can imagine the logistical nightmare that would be.

      Are these kids really the nations’ future leaders.  Who knows?  But it won’t do them any harm to be challenged on the point.  At some point in their lives, most people have to deal with leadership issues. 

      As to how I would choose the kids for such a forum,  I’d probably ask for input from their peers.  And I’d look at kids already in some sort of leadership role (captain of the cricket team or the debating club, etc).  But I wouldn’t expect miracles from them.  They’re kids after all, and know as much about leadership as they do about nuclear physics.  They might have some notions, but that’s about it.  Doesn’t mean they can’t start to learn, though.

      Now, how would you go about it?  Or would you just forget the whole thing?

    • John A Neve says:

      02:19pm | 05/11/11

      Marley,
      I have already stated I don’t think leaders can be made. You also do not need to be well educated to be a leader.
      How would I assess a potential leader? Some one that shows confidence, is a loner and not a herd animal, thinks outside the box and talks last.
      I am always reminded of the saying “Those that can do, those that can’t talk about it”.

    • Ash says:

      09:14am | 05/11/11

      It’s natural for a group of teenagers to be somewhat self conscious around their peers (especially a group of strangers gathered from schools around the district), so I don’t really understand what conclusions you were trying to draw from nobody volunteering to talk first about why they felt a particular speaker was amazing without more prompting.  There was no social media when I was at school, and you would have had the same response, even among the top students. It’s the nature of adolescence. It’s difficult to break the peer group herd mentality where there is a chance of being brutally judged on anything you say… once you hit 18/19 though that changes dramatically.  I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about the future leadership of the world from that…

      Reply

    • marley says:

      09:18am | 05/11/11

      What strikes me about this article is that quite possibly the students selected for the forum were not the real potential leaders - that, in fact, the adults imposed the wrong selection criteria.  I wonder, if the student bodies of these schools had had to choose the “leaders” in their midst, whether they would have come up with the same names.

      The other thing that strikes me is that leaders tend to be made, not born.  No one would ever have selected me as a potential leader when I was a teenager - but I certainly fulfilled leadership roles later in life.  As you grow older, you acquire more experience, more self confidence and more understanding of both people and goals.  That’s when leadership really kicks in for a lot of people.  Perhaps a few people are actually born with leadership in them;  most of the rest of us have it thrust upon us.

      So I’m not too sure I’d worry about a bunch of kids failing to display adult leadership qualities.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      12:36pm | 05/11/11

      Excellent points, Marley. Why look for leaders among children of 16 or 17? Give them a chance to grow and mature and you will find many become excellent leaders, in their own time and in the fields that they choose. And, quite possibly, the ones who do become great leaders are the ones you would have least expected!

    • Condor says:

      09:31am | 05/11/11

      I’d rather our debates were written on computer screens and using fact and logic rather than emotions.

      The latter lends itself to sloganeering and rabble-rousing.

      The former will enable us to develop a society and country that will lead the way forward.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      10:54am | 05/11/11

      I gather you don’t read blogsites much.  They’re not notable for their use of fact and logic rather than emotions.  Nor are they strangers to sloganeering and rabble-rousing.

    • Condor says:

      03:22pm | 05/11/11

      Marley: It’s easy to ignore those comments and focus on the intelligent ones.

    • marley says:

      06:14pm | 05/11/11

      @condor - yes it is easy to focus on the intelligent ones - but that’s just as easy in real as in virtual life.  I don’t pay a lot of attention to rusted-on supporters of any particular political persuasion, whether they’re ranting on blogs or at a party meeting. 

      The issue isn’t the medium, it’s the message. And I don’t find the messages on the net to be all that different from the messages in person.

    • Socially inept says:

      09:32am | 05/11/11

      “They still have emotions - powerful ones - but they’re not sure how to use them.”
      I would have said:
      They still have emoticons - colourful ones - and they sure know how to use them.

      Vacuous, self centred hiding behind social media twaddle. Not communicating, just battling to be clever and “socially aware”.

      Do you know where the Kardashians are right this minute or what Beiber had for breakfast?

      If these twits are the next rulers, we are in serious trouble.

      Reply

    • xar says:

      12:39pm | 05/11/11

      and what churned them out if not previous generations? Advertising companies target billions towards creating a birth to death consumer culture. The loss of self sufficient skills in the majority means we rely ever more on products we must purchase. And there is always another product we are told is a necessity - and once it becomes popular enough it IS a necessity…take mobile phones - you used to be able to find a payphone pretty readily, but since mobiles became popular payphones have been largely removed, creating an even higher need for a mobile. Smart phones are the next one - pretty soon there the majority of things will be targeted at smartphones, with just basic mobiles no longer able to do the job - so this consumeristic culture of needing to have the latest thing is driven on and on. Kids get thousands of messages every day from advertising psychologically targeted to have the greatest effect on them - they don’t buy into it because they are stupid, they buy into it because everyone around them has too, including older generations - you might not have advertising targeting you to want to buy into the cult of celebrity or social media to the same degree or with the same focus points but most of us are just as much suckers to comsumer culture as the kids!

    • AdamC says:

      02:09pm | 05/11/11

      Xar, that sounds like just another rant about how evil consumer supposedly capitalism, despite all its manifest benefits. I, for one, don’t object to having stuff, and I don’t believe for a second that high living standards are somehow wrecking people’s lives.

      Having said that, I could have misunderstood you. Your evident disdain for paragraphs and fondness for loopy punctuation make your comment almost unreadable.

    • xar says:

      09:13pm | 05/11/11

      ...and I don’t proof read before posting either - true my crimes against the english word are many and varied, but you are the first person to profess difficulty in reading what I write. As it happens I am not against capitalism, but I am FOR better education re: media and advertising for parents and kids and there are plentiful sound reasons to support such a thing…. (I will confess an extremely grumpy aversion to mobiles, but I don’t pretend it is more than just a simple quirk of personality rather than a statement about anything).

    • xar says:

      11:33pm | 05/11/11

      I should explain further (if you can possibly understand what I am writing tsk tsk) that both consumerism and capitalism are things which need checks and balaces - if your only measurement of quality of life is in buying stuff something is out of whack. It is entirely possible to get the balance right and be a savy, ethical consumer rather than a mindless one. But precious few seem to think beyond the definition of “quality of life” that is handed to them by marketers/advertisers/promoters fighting for their market share of proffits in ever more insidious ways.

    • xar says:

      11:55am | 05/11/11

      You design an education system designed to churn out an end product (one which is defined by present day needs or desires and fails to take into account that technological advances means the employment landscape shifts rapidly these days) and you will lose the creativity and passion needed to be an effective leader. It isn’t a LACK of expectations at all - We expect a heck of a lot of young people - but when we make them fit those rigid expectations we lose out. There is so much pressure there already to fit certain moulds, how an earth can you subscribe to the theory that if we only do more of the same things, harder and with more zeal, that we’ll make a change? Look at the worlds education systems - what produces strong leadership and creativity is not a pressure cooker of expectations but a system which encourages individual to go with their own personal strengths and interests. When we value all areas of the curriculum and success in all areas of the curriculum we see massive payoffs. And having better qualified teachers with a compairable rate of pay to other graduates seems to do wonders too! What do we do instead? We follow America and the UK both of whom have massive issues with their education systems being crap! You have to shake your head really.

      Reply

    • The Humble Bloke says:

      02:17pm | 05/11/11

      Expect the unexpected and you will get the unexpected.
      Youth will create the future which will exceed the past and the present.
      See the world and its future positively and optimistically !
      Then the future will be positive and optimistic !

      Reply

    • the humble bloke says:

      02:27pm | 05/11/11

      The old don’t know what to expect from the young that will lead to the future.
      The old have not seen the future on which to base its youth expectations.
      To base expectations of the future based on the past, only gives us the present.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      07:00pm | 05/11/11

      Mark Zuckerberg’s ideal is right, and he could have added that, the great advantage of democracy over other forms of group behaviour, is numbers.
      The more people who are involved in decisions, the better, and the lesser amount, the more likely that those who have disagreed in the first instance, might take issue with the results.
      Besides, it is more likely that if more citizens are active in local political affairs, then partisans and other special interest groups may their cases heard, for argument, with greater numbers of participants from varied cultural backgrounds, can get a hearing and response.
      Numbers is the key.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      02:07am | 06/11/11

      @Stephen
      ‘The more people who are involved in decisions, the better, and the lesser amount, the more likely that those who have disagreed in the first instance, might take issue with the results.’

      There is a balance to be maintained between ‘crisis management’, and ‘systematic management’.  Could you imagine your theory being used by Sir John Monash in WW1 ?  I wonder how many complaints he had when an attack went horribly wrong ?
      If there is a real crisis, the decisions must be made by only one person. They should take command and lead.  That is the reason Christine Nixon copped so much flak over her actions during the bushfire crisis a couple of years ago.
      At all other times democratic needs must be observed - ‘authoritarianism stifles creativity’ !
      I suggest you should think about our soldiers in WW1.  It was a volunteer army, very flexible and coordinated, and well capable of mutiny.
      They had confidence in Monash, and he effectively won the war in Europe, by use of a system.

    • marley says:

      09:04am | 06/11/11

      @acotrel - Monash may have been a fine soldier and general, but neither he nor Australia “effectively won the war.”  That’s just ludicrous.

    • stephen says:

      10:41am | 06/11/11

      I wasn’t thinking here of military decisions, where the established heirarchies are already in place - and accepted as such - by recruits.

      The act of democratic decision-making is democracy in action : the processes of thought, discussion and agreement by peoples varied in their backgrounds and wants, strengthens governance.
      The more people who are directly involved in this process, the stronger the common will.

    • Paul M says:

      12:12pm | 06/11/11

      How many of these students were from single-parent households?

      Reply

    • OEM software online says:

      11:20am | 07/11/11

      IA1MKo It`s really useful! Looking through the Internet you can mostly observe watered down information, something like bla bla bla, but not here to my deep surprise. It makes me happy..!!

      Reply
 
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ACL says gay marriage would lead to gay sex (how to do it) being taught in schools. You really haver to credit them with vivid imagination.

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