Leadership is an important skill that can help your children from a very young age, through to college and long into their future careers. But just like any skill, leadership does not come naturally to everyone and in order to become a good leader in the future, most people need to first learn how to be one.
The key characteristics of a leader
Leadership can be defined in several different ways but in general, most people agree that it involves a combination of the following characteristics.
Good communication
Confidence
Integrity
Hard work
When teaching children about leadership a good place to start is by breaking down these characteristics and working on them independently. Here are some things that you can do to help build the characteristics of a good leader.
Set goals
Setting goals is an important thing to learn and will set your child in good stead for further education and their future career. Help your child to create their own goals and then encourage them to work towards them. As they reach them, tick them off, offer praise and then help them to devise new goals to work towards. Goal setting not only helps to instil a good work ethic but will also help them in the future when they need to devise goals for other people.
Learn from mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, but what sets a leader apart from the rest is that they know how to learn from them. If your child makes a mistake, rather than dwelling on it or getting upset help them to recognise it and then devise a plan to stop it from happening again.
Teach them about great leaders
One way to encourage leadership qualities in your child is to give them great leaders to look up to. We’re lucky enough to live in a world of great leaders, so whether you teach them about makers of change such as Nelson Mandela or business leaders such as Aubrey Ferrao, there’s bound to be someone out there for them to look up to and to learn leadership qualities from.
Enrol them in extracurricular activities
Extracurricular activities such as team sports are great for helping to build your child’s confidence whilst also improving their communication skills and helping them to value team spirit. Most children don’t even realize that they’re learning how to be great leaders while hitting a baseball or running with a football.
Let them make decisions
Decision making is another important part of being a leader and you can help your child to build the confidence they need to make strategic decisions later on in life by letting them make more decisions now. Start by letting your child choose between two options in their lunch, and gradually move on to harder or more complex decisions such as letting them choose how to spend their own money.
Lead by example
Finally, don’t forget to lead by example by trying to embody the characteristics of a good leader yourself. Most homeschooling parents already display these characteristics without even knowing it but it never hurts to have them in the back of your mind.
