Events & Process

Student Leadership Conferences

We believe that students need two ingredients to grow: EVENTS & PROCESS. In order to train student leaders, we cannot simply host an "event" on a campus, we must include a leadership mentoring process, that follows the event to provide support and accountability and insure their growth

EVENTS	PROCESS
-Encourage decisions -Motivate people -Are a calendar issue -Usually about a big group -Challenge Students -Becomes a catalyst -Easy	-Encourage development -Matures People -Is a consistency issue -Usually about a small group -Changes Students -Becomes a culture -Difficult

"The Georgia Tech School of Engineering runs a very successful industry-student mentoring program. This is a result of dedicated participants and the mentor/mentee training they receive from Growing Leaders."

Dr. Mary Lynn Realff / Director of Undergraduate Affairs / Georgia Tech

A SUGGESTED PROCESS FOR LEADER DEVELOPMENT

Mentoring Relationships & Student Leadership Training Program

STEPS TO BUILDING A LEADERSHIP CULTURE

After working with more than 700 schools and organizations, Growing Leaders has found that the process outlined below can help to foster a thriving youth leadership development culture. It is an accelerated path for creating environments where young leaders emerge, and Growing Leaders has resources and services to assist with each step.

STEP ONE: ASSESSMENT/PREPARATION

Complete a thorough assessment of your current leadership culture to determine student and staff views on leadership, opportunities for leadership training and development, and the level of buy-in and personal involvement. Form a team of key leaders (Key Team) to spearhead the process and oversee all steps of the process.

Growing Leaders offers an online assessment and consultation to interpret the needs and climate of your present situation. From this meeting, we work with the Key Team to create a customized plan for developing leaders that is specific to your needs.

STEP TWO: MENTOR TRAINING

Meet weekly with the Key Team for ongoing planning, support, and accountability. As a Key Team, select potential mentors and prepare them (this could be staff and students) to lead mentoring communities for interested students.

Since we believe that life change only happens where there is life exchange, leadership cultures are built and sustained through healthy mentoring communities. Growing Leaders provides the following mentor training resources:

Lifelines Kit: This is a DVD kit designed to train faculty, staff and peer mentors. The kit includes 10 DVD training sessions giving insights on how to be an effective mentor as well as an MP3 download of each lesson.

Habitudes Book Four (The Art of Changing Culture): This book is geared for established leaders who want to learn and discuss proven principles for changing organizational culture.

STEP THREE: CATALYTIC EVENT

Hold a leadership conference on-site covering issues of your choosing. The goal is for the conference to be a catalyst for students to begin the leadership development process.

Growing Leaders has a team of ten speakers available to speak on a wide variety of leadership topics. One of the most popular is The Habitudes Experience.

STEP FOUR: FOLLOW-UP RESOURCES

Provide resources for staff and mentors to use to connect with and train emerging leaders following the event.

Growing Leaders offers a wide variety of resources that can be used in small groups, classroom settings, and mentoring communities. Click here for a preview.

STEP FIVE: MENTORING COMMUNITIES
- For students interested in developing leadership skills

Establish mentoring groups for the purpose of developing leadership habits and attitudes. This represents the "process" following an event.

Each community is given a real-life challenge to work on during the semester.
Each community is given a coach to lead the discovery process each week.
Each community is exposed to consultants in the area to offer expertise from time to time.

We recommend that students start their leadership journey with the first book in the Habitudes series entitled “The Art of Self-Leadership”. It covers key principles like character development, time management, discipline, and taking initiative.

STEP SIX: MENTORING COMMUNITIES
- For established student leaders

Establish mentoring groups for established leaders, for the purpose of equipping them to do their jobs.

We suggest the third book in the Habitudes series entitled “The Art of Leading Others”. It covers topics such as focused vision, choosing priorities, modeling behavior and team building.

STEP SEVEN: MENTORING COMMUNITIES
- For upperclassmen leaders

During fall semester, select a group of juniors and seniors who will meet as a mentoring community in preparation to mentor underclassmen in the spring.

The second book in the Habitudes series entitled “The Art of Connecting with Others” is geared to help leader hone their communication and people skills. It covers topics such as effective listening, conflict resolution, and the art of encouraging others.

STEP EIGHT: TRAINING EXPERIENCES

Because leadership development is a process, not just an event, provide ongoing training experiences for the community of leaders on your campus. These could be held weekly, twice a month, or monthly, and can cover specific topics, relevant to their roles.

Growing Leaders offers a free monthly leadership article called “The Leadership Link”. It can be used as a springboard for group discussion. The Habitudes series is also available in DVD format and is ideal for small group training.

STEP NINE: OPPORTUNITIES & APPRENTICESHIPS

Because students require real-life experience in order to grow, be sure and offer plenty of outlets for them to practice the leadership truths they are learning. These opportunities can be in student government, resident life, campus clubs, mentoring communities, etc.

STEP TEN: LEADERSHIP QUEST

Finally, once students graduate, we hope they venture out into the marketplace as a life-giving leader. This means they have identified their strengths and their passions, and they are serving that gift up to the world.

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY

We believe every student is a leader because there are two kinds of leaders and everyone falls into one of these two categories. The first kind is a HABITUAL leader. The second kind is a SITUATIONAL leader.

Habitual leaders lead out of habit. They are the natural leaders. Whatever group they are part of, whatever team they are on, they tend to take charge. This makes up about 10-15% of the population. However, the majority are the other kind of leader. This kind of leader is the Situational leader. These are the ones who don’t feel like a great leader…but when you place them in the right situation, one that matches their strengths and passions, in this sweet spot, they have influence. They tend to lead.

Our goal is to help each emerging leader find his or her situation.

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Growing Leaders is a non-profit organization which serves public schools, state universities, and civic organizations, as well as faith-based organizations and churches. Our mission is to develop young leaders who will transform society. Our goal is to equip and mobilize one percent of the world’s population under the age of 25 (30 million students) to think and act like authentic, life-giving leaders. We will do this by helping them discover their purpose, equipping them for leadership and showing them how to use their gifts to serve the world around them. We are about youth leadership development.