KidLead: Growing Great Leaders with Alan Nelson
[00:00:00] Welcome in everyone. You are listening to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being with us. And we're here to have a great conversation about leadership development in our kids, including our young kids. This is a great topic, something I'm excited to chat about with my guest, Dr. Alan Nelson. He is a Leadership Development Specialist, Trainer, Speaker, and Lecturer of Management at the Naval Postgraduate School. He also founded KidLead Academy, which is the world's first online course to train parents how to develop their child's leadership potential. and founded Lead Young Training Systems, which designs organizational leadership curricula for [00:01:00] three to 23 year olds.
I told you there's some young kids here. So we're going to get into all of that. Alan is the author of 40 books and over 200 articles on personal growth and leadership, including Kid Lead, Growing Great Leaders, and My Kid Leads among others. Alan, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks, Ross. Thanks for having me.
So let's get to. This part of your career where you came to that realization that the best time to develop leaders is in that age range, three to 23.
How did you come to that conclusion?
Yeah, great question. So, someday, Ross, you'll get to midlife, okay? At midlife, you say, okay, what do I want to do the rest of my life? So, my dad used to say, life is like a roll of toilet paper. The less you have left, the faster it goes. So, I only had half a roll left, and I said, oh my gosh, I could do what I was doing, kind of traditional doctorate in leadership, write books, articles, do conferences, teachers, teach a school, [00:02:00] but I just didn't see the results.
You know, it just seemed like, adults didn't change much and they're preoccupied with their careers and all that. So, so a friend of mine, who's kind of a futurist and, is an expert in Looking at social trends, et cetera. He said, have you ever thought about kids? And at first I dismissed him because I thought I have kids.
I love kids, but you know, I don't work with kids, but he was talking about getting the leaders young. So that kind of put a seed in my thought and I started researching it to see what was out there, found that there was really little to nothing in terms of organizational leadership programs. So then I said, okay that's my call the rest of my life.
And so I channeled all my attention. I should say all most of my attention. I had to earn a living still. But I really wanted to focus on how to identify emerging leadership talents. Just like, for example, maybe Ross and your three year old, right? Or how do we nurture that talent? And then, how can [00:03:00] we, in sort of an aged in stage approach, help them learn leadership at their place in life?
And really, the goal was to give them a huge head start so that they would be effective and ethical as adults. Because heaven knows we need more of those type of leaders in the world. So that's kind of what got me going. And I've seen wonderful results. And at the same time, We're doing something that practically no one else is doing.
Yeah. What kind of clued you in to the three to 23, a pretty large age range, right? But when you started to focus in on that and especially to look at kids, Kind of 10 and under. What was some of the evidence that you saw that you could develop leaders at that age, right? We'll get into the benefits of and what some of it looks like, but even to see it as possible.
Yeah. Good question. So I think probably, to be honest, [00:04:00] I think part of it came from my midlife discernment of where I was as a leader. I've always been leader oriented, but I, I think I w I should have been further along. I wanted to be you know, a stronger leader and higher up in my leadership capacity.
And so I look back and said, Oh my gosh I was a leader at school because I went to this little country school in Iowa. And at recess time, I remember the kids would come out and say, Alan, what are we going to play for recess? You know, I'd say, okay, well, let's do softball or let's do soccer. Let's do Red Rover, Red Rovers.
So, I grew up, but then I realized that never got affirmed at home there in my family. I'm an only child and there's only room for one leader. And it was never me. It was dad. So I feel like. You know, part of this calling is, goes back to my days as a young leader. And if you look at kids on any playground, you can tell there are certain kids that get the other kids to follow them.
Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's [00:05:00] not good, but there's just a natural premonition. On my estimate is that probably 1 out of 10 have a natural gift and talent. And it's not to say that others can't learn to lead later, but those early bloomers, I call them they just lead naturally. So even a preschool like your little guy now is in preschool, little preschoolers have those kids who say, okay, let's play school.
And I'm going to be the teacher. And you sit over there and you sit over there. And sometimes we call them little tyrants. Because occasionally they grow up to be big tyrants, but at the end of the day, there are just some kids that just, they're comfortable and they're good at it. And even older kids will follow them.
So yeah, the more I study it, the more I've observed it, the more I've come to appreciate this is a reality and we need to identify and develop that talent really young.
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How do you talk to kids about leadership and get them to [00:06:00] understand what it is, right? Why or, Kind of defining that it's something that they're trying to learn about and just starting out those conversations,
I think the converse, yeah, great question. I think the conversation is about. Being able to be in charge. And it's, that's really what Kid Lead Academy is all about. It's teaching parents how to have these conversations and what to do to develop their child's leadership potential. So, sometimes a conversation, and I don't want to I want to add a little disclaimer to what I said previously.
It's sometimes the best thing that these natural leaders learn is how not to lead, right? How not to take over. Because you can't really be a good leader until you learn how to be a good follower. But sometimes leaders who have the potential to lead well follow and they should be stepping it up. So I think it's having the conversation of saying matter how old [00:07:00] your child is, giving them opportunities to be in charge.
Because it's kind of like the child game of follow the leader you do like me. Well, how do you then turn that into dinner, right? So a typical parenting thing is a parent would say, okay, you're 10 years old. Noel, you're going to get dinner. You're going to cook dinner. Well, that's teaching them how to cook or that's teaching them how to do dinner, but it's not teaching them how to lead.
So if you were to say, okay, Noel, you're in charge of dinner, but that doesn't mean you have to do it. It just means you have to get the team to work together to do it. So then all of a sudden he has a budget maybe, and he has to figure out people's schedules and who's going to get the food, who's going to prep the food, who's going to clean up afterwards.
All of that is about leadership, and to be honest, those are kind of the same primal, primary skills that top CEOs [00:08:00] have and use. So, we're just talking about, talking to a child about being in charge. and helping the rest of us as team members to be organized and to work together. And almost every kid likes that experience of being in charge.
Right. Yeah, well, it's and I think it, that's a point that is worth reflection because there's a lot of things where kids resist the, Demands that we put on them or our guided or instruction and, but if you reflect on it, you say like, we would react the same way. Right? Nobody likes being told what to do.
Nobody likes not feeling like they have any autonomy or any input. And so just because sometimes it's more convenient or we have maybe. you know, incomplete memories of our own childhood. We think, [00:09:00] well kids are just supposed to listen and do whatever we say to them. And realistically a little bit of resistance is normal.
A little bit of desire to have input and control and to at least have it be a conversation. And sometimes there's certain things that are those non negotiables or this is just what we have to do. But the more in any context, whether it's in the classroom with teaching and learning and having kids actually have a understanding of why are we learning this?
Why is this valuable? Why is it that makes it more possible to actually comprehend it? gives them the context to engage with it and understand why do I actually want to know this, right? Same thing at home, same thing no matter who you're dealing with, right? A peer or somebody younger or somebody older.
And, and so they're [00:10:00] kind of, it makes sense that kids would want to have these skills and want to be consulted, have an opportunity to show some decision making.
Yeah I agree. I think we're in a culture today, and this is I'm not trying to stereotype us as parents generationally or whatever, but at least in the United States, I'd say U. S. and Western Europe, we are in a mode That doesn't help our kids to become autonomous adults. We create this unhealthy dependency and it's, I think it's well intended, but the helicopter parent syndrome doesn't help kids in general, and it actually works against.
Our children being leaders. So I just finished the book Free Range Kids by Eleanor Skenazy and she is, she has this audacious idea that our kids ought to have more, experience and being in charge. and doing things on their own. And I [00:11:00] just love that because I think that in our desire to protect our kids, which is a natural parental desire, we actually prevent them from being strong, confident people.
And I think it creates more anxiety. I mean, there are a lot of our kids in Gen Z, There are a lot of anxieties and you know, as a university professor, I hear about these a lot and we don't want to do that. So I think the best thing you can do for your child at times is to let them be in charge, let them take some risks, let them do things that even if they fail, they learn from that failure, right?
They learn consequences and then they grow up to be confident people as opposed to overly protecting them. And inadvertently, we create anxiety ridden, fearful people. So, yeah that's a hard thing to let kids go, as you know. And let them do things because there's always that desire, Oh no, they might fall.
Well Yeah, but they'll probably get, they'll get up and they'll learn from that. So,
[00:12:00] Yeah, there certainly is that a challenging process of ascertaining where is there a real danger in something that we need to protect and not abide by that burnt hand teaches best when it's literal maybe and then in other cases where it's okay, there's the same. you know, relatively low stakes or low risk the, a failure here doesn't mean a trip to the ER.
And let's give it a shot and see what happens. Or just even the simplest little things like going to the grocery store together and saying, okay, what do you want here? And it pays off down
you got 20. What are you going to get? This is the list. Yeah, that, that, I love that. Yeah. And maybe they get their own little cart or maybe they direct you where to go. And there are all sorts of everyday ways we can do this. So not only developing strong adults, but also our biases, you can put them in charge, right?
So as they get older and they get more confident, [00:13:00] you give them more risk and bigger budget and bigger projects, but it's amazing what they can do. It really is.
Yeah. So are leaders born or a
they are. They are.
what does it look like identifying leadership talent? Does that look different across the ages?
Yeah. Dad
might start young, but
That's such an interesting question. If you Google that question, you'll have literally tens of millions of responses. It's one of those chicken egg sort of thing. Yeah. You don't know. So way back in the past, we historically have always thought that leaders were born, right?
You're born to a certain family. You're even in the U. S. Oh you're born. You're a Kennedy. You're a Rockefeller. And then as education elevated and then as democracy elevated, people started saying, oh no leaders aren't born, they're made. You can be whatever you want to be.
You can do whatever you want to do. Well, that's a great slogan, but in reality, we [00:14:00] can't, right? I guarantee you, I, no matter how much I want to play in the NBA, that's not going to happen. Okay. I am genetically dwarfed and I will not do that, you know. I mean, talent wise. So, I think we need to be realistic, and what positive psychology is teaching us is the research suggests that we're most apt to succeed in the areas of our strengths.
So, someone said, a child is not a book to be written, but a book to be read. So, how do we read our kids? What are their strengths? And then how can we play to those strengths? So we do know over the last 15 to 20 years, genetic research has actually told us that although perhaps we can learn about leadership and learn to lead, that some people are born with a predisposition to lead.
That is it. That is genetically supported by science. And it varies from trait to trait, anywhere from 10 to 62 percent of the leader oriented traits and qualities that are [00:15:00] inherited. So, if you have more and more kids, Ross, you'll know, I mean, we have three grown sons. And so they all came from the same gene pool, but they're different.
So we have a kind of a mid level leader. We have a high octane leader and we have a low level leader. So they're all talented and we love them the same, but in terms of their natural leadership capacity, they're different. So what we've discerned in our work since 2005 is that four qualities tend to be common in kids, young kids, old kids young adults that have a natural disposition to lead.
And they all, we gave them P's so that there's an alliteration. So let me explain those. There's persuasive, propelled, planner, and power. So persuasive, meaning they're good at negotiating and communicating. They persuade their points. So they'll come a time when your son will say, Hey, Can I stay up late?
There's a Disney movie on, you'll say, [00:16:00] Oh no, it's a school night. And and then your son will say, well, yeah, but I, my homework's done and my lunch is made and my clothes are laid out and then you'll have this nice conversation and you'll say, okay, well just this time and they close the door and you say, how do they always do that?
Right. There are just certain kids and we're not talking about having a fit, an aisle two at Walmart. We're talking about the kid who can look in the eye. Communicate their point, and you say okay. So leaders are always persuading, they're persuading people to follow them, to buy into their ideas. Second is propelled, they're self motivated, they initiate projects, they start clubs, they get people to come play a game.
And so, there's this natural they're not couch potatoes, they don't just like to play video games hour after hour. They really do like to do things and get people to follow them. A third thing is they're planners. They see the big picture and they break it into steps. So I'm not talking about an engineer.
I'm talking about someone who [00:17:00] has the concept of what you want to accomplish and then they can say, Okay, so here's how we're going to do it. You know, they come up with a plan. And then the fourth thing is power. They just feel comfortable being in front of others, being in charge. Sometimes they gravitate to positions like that and sometimes they don't.
If they disagree with a rule, they will step up to a person of authority and they'll say, no, it should not be this way. So they feel comfortable with power, but they also feel comfortable pushing back on power. And those four qualities, if they have them individually, They may not be a leader, but if they have all four of those, oh my gosh they have a lot of natural leadership talent.
So again, that's what we've learned to look for is not just what does make, what does what makes a leader effective, but we look for emerging gifts and qualities so that we can predict who is going to lead.
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Hearing each of those [00:18:00] it feels as though they could all be enacted by people with, a variety of different dispositions, right? Because there is communication, it's preparedness, it's self confidence and self awareness and not not feeling pressured to appear a certain way not being afraid to maybe offer a different perspective than somebody who's in a position of power means not being afraid to be wrong, necessarily also not being afraid to be right.
Right. And it's reminding me of our most recent episode here. Let's go back to with Mark Miller. That, He's been on twice, but the latest one about his book, Uncommon Greatness, and Mark was the former VP of High Performance Leadership at Chick fil A, and he talked about one time they hired a consultant to come in and do this [00:19:00] leadership assessment and spend time with them talking about their leadership, and he walked into the room to meet And he said, with the consultant and guy was he didn't know what to say and he said, is everything okay?
Are you all right? He said I don't know what to make of this. You know, this is basically the profile doesn't say that you're a leader because you don't. Walk into a room and take charge and you don't do all these things. And then he just had a different style of it. Right. But you can be different.
You can have that same effect with different types of personalities and sometimes having the less obvious, the connotation of that leader. It can work to your advantage, not only because of humility and other things, but again, put people at ease. It can make people more open to following you, and they're not immediately put on the defensive of, okay, this person's going to come in and take charge, but they're going to come in, they're going to ask me what [00:20:00] I think, we're going to have a conversation, and then I'm persuading you, and I'm showing you what I know, and I'm putting forth some good ideas and leading by example, and now we're Kind of open to the main thing, you're not a leader if nobody's following, right?
That's
and everybody is going to have a different way of convincing other people to follow them. Some people do it by overpowering charisma, context matters to what effective leadership looks like in the military versus in a private business versus. in a school versus at home, right, is different.
Different situations call for different ways of going about it. But the key thing in each of the things you mentioned is that it can work in all of those. It's about the person and how they are able to make it happen.
You bring out a really good point, and I think that's important that and Chick fil A is a great organization they, with great leadership last week I was at the Naval [00:21:00] Academy teaching leadership to some graduate students, and they had to pick a thesis project, and one of the teams picked the thesis project of addressing the Myers Briggs program.
Inventory, right? To who gets selected as leaders and then kind of how does that impact their leadership in the Navy or the Marines years to come. And I thought it was very interesting because We probably all have an idea in our head, right? It's called implicit leadership. We all have an idea of what a leader should do or what a leader's like.
That's why in the United States, half the people think one leader's doing great. Half the people think the other leader's doing great. And so you say who's right? Well, they're kind of both right because we look for different things in our leaders. But also what I like what you said is that there is no one stereotype leader.
We think the type of a, the charismatic person in charge, but that's typical transformational leadership and history is also full of [00:22:00] examples of people like that who've done terrible things like that. Hitler, etc. Sometimes the best leaders are kind of soft spoken and introvertish. They know how to communicate, but they don't wow us, but they're really good at bringing us together, and they're humble, and they get things done, and we would follow them anywhere.
So I think that's an important thing as a parent that we not just assume that our gregarious outgoing child is a natural leader, maybe they're really good at cheerleading or sales. But maybe your quieter middle or younger child has more chutzpah in terms of just getting people together and people trust them more.
So yeah, you can't just pin a certain temperament or personality on a leader. Sometimes the best leaders are surprising us. Yeah, they surprise us by how they don't come across in that stereotypical way.
Yeah. And I think that speaks [00:23:00] to the necessity of everybody getting a better understanding of this because part of having people. In better positions, with better opportunities, leading better organizations, is recognizing where that leadership potential is, as you said, giving the right people opportunities at leadership and trying different things and saying, I see some potential in this.
Let me. Give them a chance to do something that I may not have otherwise assumed, right? If I'm a teacher and I have 25 kids in my classroom and, you know. There's a kid who's a little bit quieter, right? Who's not naturally just like putting their hand up or when I say I need somebody to lead this, but I see, okay, but this kid has a great way of conducting themselves or doing certain things.
Let's try this and see what happens. Or, certainly with in [00:24:00] organizations with talent development and seeing who has the true potential here to be an effective leader adds value to the organization. And is that necessarily the person who is always angling for that next position and opportunity?
Maybe that person also has the skills, but maybe that's just their disposition or that way that they're maneuvering in their career, whereas this other person who I might be content to leave where they are because they're highly capable and productive there and they seem to be satisfied, but what can I project forward?
And if I put the, if I put them in another position, could they make the people around them better? And what would that look like? And How would that align with our organizational values and our objectives and what we're trying to do, right? But I don't think that, I don't think that the standard media, the media and [00:25:00] organization is good at that at all.
And I think that's why there's a lot of turnover and a lot of leadership roles because It's a it's a strategy for some people. Let me get to this position. Let me go through my playbook of ideas. Once I'm out of ideas, let me go to a different organization, go through my playbook, and every two to three years I'm in a different place, and I'm personally having success in my career because I'm in good roles with a good salary, right?
But am I actually adding a lot of value here? Am I contributing to the long term? Or are some of the people who have the real authentic traits, are they either Kind of stifled and where they're we're not making the most of them or they know that they feel like they can do more and they're, and we're having attrition there because they're saying, well, nobody's giving me an opportunity here and clearly they don't get it.
So, so it follows along the path of saying whether it's a child or a [00:26:00] young adult or somebody in mid career, are we recognizing the right things that demonstrate leadership potential.
Yeah. I agree with you. And that's, there again, that's really the essence of kid Lead Academy is trying to teach parents how, not just to be a parent, but to be a savvy young leader, trainer, a future leader trainer, right? We say, what would it be like if leaders from the future came and asked us for advice?
What would you tell 'em? And so that's an interesting novel idea. And then you realize, oh my gosh. That's what kids are. They're leaders from the future, right? So, it's helping them learn these skills, and if you do it over and over and over again, as you suggest, they don't have a little skinny playbook, and forces them to rotate to one organization to another, but it allows them to learn the leadership process, so that whatever life or work throws at them, they can respond to it with their skill sets that you've helped them develop for years before they become an [00:27:00] adult.
And that's what I see as my burden and also potential so many parents is to instill that in their children.
Are there other things that parents might be doing or adults of any kind that inadvertently kind of shuts down children's leadership potential, not you reference kind of helicopter parenting and that kind of thing, but I'm sure there's some other things that are limiting children's exploration of their leadership potential or their their development.
Yeah I think there again I think the idea that, first of all I define leadership as a process of helping people accomplish together what they would not or could not as individuals. And I had 700 books of leadership in my library and less than 5 percent actually defined the term. So it's kind of like everyone thinks they're talking about the same thing and they're not.
A lot of parents in schools and educators, when they talk about leadership, they're just talking about being a good person, a kid with self esteem, [00:28:00] a good character. I, we want that for everybody. That doesn't make you a leader just because you have those things, right? We want those in our team members.
What makes leaders unique and different? So those are those four qualities I talked about. But then, I think a lot of times parents they infantilize their kids, they treat them like infants, and then they wonder why, especially during adolescence, their child rebels, or they have a a bad attitude.
Well, like you said earlier, none of us like to have a boss who treats us like a kid, so why do we treat our teenager like a kid? So, I think at each age and stage, we parent and we develop leaders differently. Her the child, but at the end of the day, it really comes to teaching them how to have people skills, teaching them how to lead in projects and problem solve and think critically and teaching them to be independent.
And that's that [00:29:00] idea that if we provide too much comfort and too much care and too much hovering, we'll actually stifle them. And some of the results that if you look at the science, that the science of being a boss is a good thing, right? So, for example, we know that people who are leaders, supervisors, they make a third to a half more than workers.
They are more satisfied in their work life. They're more satisfied in their home life. They're less likely to be bullied. 28 percent of kids will, at least in middle school, be bullied, but elevating their social status is what leadership is about. Teaching kids about influence, how to identify the influencers, and so it takes them out of that 28%.
So, they're just a lot of really great benefits that kids get, not only as adults, but as youth and as kids, if we teach them about leadership and then ultimately [00:30:00] how to lead. So yeah, I, I just think there are a lot of wonderful things that we overlook as parents because we sort of think leadership is something you treat, you teach adults how to do.
Someday you'll be a leader. And I like to say, no, you, they can learn to lead now, but you got to give them opportunities. But I think it goes back to us as parents. It's kind of like that boss. I wrote a book called the five star boss, and it's really designed for new bosses because when a person becomes a boss for the first time, they think that you have to be bossy.
No one likes a bossy boss and no one likes a bossy parent. So how do you still retain your authority as a parent, but not come across in a bossy way? And so that's what I think parents generally need to learn is how to do that. Cause you're not your child's friend. You should not be their friend until they become an adult.
You're still the charge. You're in charge. You're the leader of your little family corporation, but you need to think in terms of how you lead. And sometimes you empower. [00:31:00] Team members to be in charge. And that's what we try to do in our course and our curriculum.
Yeah. Yeah. And like the conversations to the point of feeling like I need to be the bossy boss is, I mean, part of right. Some people naturally may be in positions and be able to think about things that they know they don't want to do once they're in a position because they have a boss. That's a certain way or an experience to say when I'm at that.
You know, or a parent, that's a certain way. And say when I have kids, I don't want to do that kind of thing. But but for a lot of people still, the magnetic pull toward repeating those behaviors is there. Or or the feeling that it'll be cathartic, right? Where, okay, all those years I had to listen to these bosses, And now it's my turn.
But. Being able to have [00:32:00] conversations as a young leader is developing about, okay, here's things that are working, here's things we want to avoid, or learning lessons from, okay I tried this and I thought this was, I had my positive intent, but. It wasn't really effective. Right. When I was first in a leadership role, I was really conscientious about the fact that I had that responsibility to be responsible to the team and the organization and all that went with it, but it led to a predisposition toward a little bit of micromanagement or stepping in and taking over projects.
We're struggling versus having a different approach. And while there's sometimes that works in the short term, you realize, okay, there's the long term of this is damaging because now people learn that they're, Don't have to be as responsible [00:33:00] or accountable for their own work because somebody will take over or or they start to resent and feel like there's there, there's no confidence in them and they're not learning and developing.
So all these things that it doesn't, they don't have to come from a bad place, right? But. It's better to learn those lessons sooner through intentional conversation and development of them versus later on to be in a position and then not know what to do or or to never get that opportunity because of course, sometimes, and we hope that The demonstration of leadership competencies would be a determiner of getting more opportunities at leadership.
So, all of that points to the importance of starting earlier and seeing it as a You know, even when we talk about the age 23, when people are [00:34:00] getting to, to those ages of high school and post secondary and whether they're going right into the workforce or college, etc. Okay, you're not going to go and probably be in a leadership title in your first job, but the more you're thinking about how to lead, the more likely you are to be in a leadership position.
in your sphere of influence and in your position, it's going to serve you as you progress.
And that's what you make a good point there, that it's going to take you probably a while till you get in a position of authority, but that's what, why we try to teach in our curriculum and such, we try to teach young people how to lead up and lead laterally, right? Because you can still influence.
It's just that you influence differently when you're leading your boss and your peers than when you're leading your subordinates. So yeah, we really, great leaders learn to lead 360 degrees and you gotta know how to do that [00:35:00] differently and to do it well. And if you do, then you can lead in all situations, even if you're not the leader.
So Alan, as we're sort of getting toward the end of our conversation here I wanted to specifically see if there's any takeaways in particular for educators who are listening, who
Yeah, so for educators, I think the big thing for educators, in all honesty, the first 15 years, we primarily were introducing this to schools, private schools, charter schools, public schools. and and less parents. And now we've made the shift to parents. So I think the big thing for educators is that educators often see young leaders, especially the talented ones, sounds like your three year old, they see them as instigators and troublemakers more than potential assets.
Because the big thing in especially public education is that when you have a 1 to 20 ratio, right, teacher to student [00:36:00] ratio, you're looking for compliance. But unfortunately, leaders by nature are non compliant, so if you come home and you stub your toe on a tack, you get a hammer and you knock it down.
We do the same thing with our young leaders in our schools, is we tend to knock them down. But every now and then you re you meet an educator, a principal, or a teacher who, they recognize that this young person can be my, ally. I can tap into their natural social influence instead of fighting it. I can tap into it and they can help me lead this class, right?
Or lead it, lead activities on the playground or lead projects. So unfortunately, a lot of our frequent flyers to the principal's office are future CEOs. And they as an educator often don't see that and they see them as a problem. I hope that if there's any takeaway for an educator, that they see these natural social influencers [00:37:00] as allies.
And even if they're troublesome, they need to learn how to use their influence in a positive way. So. Get close to them, harness that natural aptitude, and give them opportunities in the class and in the school system to actually be in charge. Not just be on student government, but to be in charge in sports scenarios and class projects and out of school projects.
These are kids who have such ability and they may not be academically as strong. The research suggests that leaders aren't necessarily the smartest people. They're above average, but not necessarily the smartest. So realize that they have other abilities and skills. And if you would harness them, It'll help everybody get along better.
so, we've mentioned a couple of the many books, Kid Lead and My Kid Leads, which you can find on Amazon or wherever else you get your books. We also have the websites, kidlead. com, leadyoungtraining. com. Anything in particular you'd recommend people [00:38:00] check out if they want to learn more or...
yeah, I think that probably the easiest read is My Kid Leads because that's 44 chapters, they're all short, you can read them in any order you want. We have an audiobook for that as well as the hard copy. But I I say, I'd say check out Kid Lead Academy because it just is a way to introduce seven hours worth of online training that then turns you into kind of a mini trainer coach for your children.
And even if you don't have kids, but you're an educator or social worker, it's just a great way to, to identify those kids who have natural ability and give them a huge head start in life.
Excellent. So we'll put the links below to all of those resources so that it's easy for everyone out there to find them. Check all of that out. If this topic interests you, if you have kids of your own, if you're teaching students or any and all of the above they're good. Get resources there.
Please also do subscribe to the authority. If you're not already, we'll continue [00:39:00] to bring you lots of great interviews with authors from across the spectrum of education and leadership and personal development who have insights and strategies to help you or visit bpodcast. network to learn about all of our shows.
Alan, thanks again for being here.
Thanks Ross
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