How are leadership skills acquired?

An important characteristic of successful leadership skills is that they are learned by experience. They are not instinctive and they are not taught. How many business professors do we know who cannot run successful businesses? How many times do we see CEOs without business training running a flashy business by the seat of their pants until they get thrown in jail? Think Enron here...

Our young women will participate in a great many leadership workshops of many types. In order to give them a broad experience, young women are assigned males to be led on a rotatiing basis. Each young woman will also lead groups of other young women and of males in various stages of training in order to experience situations firsthand and learn to react to them. Young women will need to work together and alone to complete the tasks required. Some tasks will be quite challenging, and immediate assessments will need to be made for the projects to succeed.

Tasks are designed not merely to be "team-building", as Outward bound trips are, but to create useful work, so that all can benefit from the efforts of every group member. The scope of such projects will vary from small to quite large. Last year one group designed a lacrosse field one weekend, built it the next, and installed grandstands on the third. Good job inspiring your laborers, ladies! Getting the most out of males at this age and level of training will be useful experience for future careers in politics and other high profile careers such as law. Our young women are up to the task! The sky is the limit!