What do you do when you have a student who shows great leadership potential?
Over the course of my ministry experience I’ve had a few students who seem to be a step ahead of their peers when it comes to reading and understanding a room. They have an intuition about them that makes them appear more mature and capable than everyone else.
So, it only makes sense to give them more and more responsibility, right? I mean, we want to develop student leaders. That’s kind of the point of what I write about here at 3QL.
Let me offer one caveat. And it’s one that is still fresh in my mind.
I never want to crush a potential leader’s spirit. I desperately try to avoid adding too much to their burden, but when a student has a high capacity, I find myself wrestling with this.
That’s why I’ve started reminding myself of the following thought.
Give students student leadership opportunities, not adult leadership opportunities.
If you want someone to feel the weight and worry of leadership, give a teenager the load you would expect from an adult. I’m not saying some teenagers cannot handle such responsibility, but they have the rest of their lives to be adults.
Put in the effort to help a student find appropriate levels of challenge for where they are. I want to avoid expecting a 14 year old, who shows incredible capacity for influence, to carry the load I would ask a 34 year old to carry. No one wins in that situation.
Instead, I want to help that 14 year explore leadership in appropriate avenues.
Stretch their thinking? Of course.
Challenge their abilities? Sure.
Help them grow their leadership influence? Absolutely.
But if I ask them to start adulting, they will burn out and I will give up.
So, how are you at this? Are you providing high capacity students with student leadership opportunities?