#242 Think Your Young Person Isn’t a Leader? Look Again Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker-Robbins

What are your leadership skills? We hear this all the time, and we say it to young people that they need to be a leader. And when we say this, what usually comes to mind for most young people, high school students, college students, recent graduates looking for their job: team captain, student government, club president, I started something. I solved a big problem. I’m the person at the front of the room. And for those of us as parents, when our young person isn’t that kid, that extroverted version that we picture leadership as being, it can be really easy to conclude that, well, leadership isn’t really one of their strengths. But what if you, others, school, teachers, what if we’re all defining leadership too narrowly? Here’s one mom’s insight from this.

Speaker 01:35

Yes, I want to say that going through this process with my son, he’ll be a high schooler. I realized some things about him as mother that I didn’t see before and was able to connect things that he had been doing early high school that I had seen him grow in like leadership. I had seen him take that on, but I didn’t connect that that’s what it was. He was just doing it, and it has led us into he’s getting more involved in 4-H and he’s making choices to expand on that. And I hadn’t seen it before going through all this, so that was that’s been one of the wonderful things to come out of this.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  02:18

That’s a gift. Okay, Audrea, what a gift to be with her and her son as she talks about not the leadership that her son was acquiring, but how as they set out as a family, wrapping around as a family, intentionally setting aside the time and the attention to do this career discovery and design work, that she changed the lens through which she was seeing her son. And she lit up when she shared with me about it. So, through this career clarity process that we do, he was building a greater self-awareness, but she began to also dig into what his hardwired personality was. They began to see not only when he was standing at the front of the room or not, but what his needs are, his motivations, his strengths, even when they’re quiet, and patterns that fit him for a fulfilling future, right? And so, as he became aware, Mom became aware, even though they were working on something from him, and something started to shift. So, here’s what happened. She started to say like, How did I not know this about the kid who is living in my own house? We’ve all had those moments, right? Like, we see our kids in a different light. Well, what if this leadership light is how we need to see our kids differently, so we can unleash something in them that is going to help position them better. There is tremendous emotion for parents when they begin to see their kids differently, and it calls out something in their kids. Hi, I’m Lisa Marker Robbins and this is College and Career Clarity, where we wrap around families with 15-to-25-plus-years-old kiddos to help them gain the self-awareness and the confidence to chart a path into the career that fits, so they can launch out into the world. So, we’re going to talk about leadership and how that affects this. Because leadership, my friends, is bigger than a title, but most of the time the people I’m talking about, we’re defining it by titles and I get why, right? So, you know, we’re right now we’re in college application season for those that are college-bound and are doing their applications with their seniors, or maybe you’ve got a junior who knows this year is really important, or maybe you have a college student who’s looking to find that internship, fall is the inner internship hunting season, right? And so, leadership is what comes to mind, because we feel like that’s the thing that’s going to move the needle. Or maybe they’re going after that first big job where they’re going to move out of your home and onto their own two feet. So what I want to do today is like, let’s blow up, stereotypically, that in-the-box thinking that we have. We have this about a lot of things. I talked about it earlier this summer in July about how our thinking about careers within the box is a problem, because reality is leadership can look like a lot of different things. It could be like a school project and you’re just taking charge in the group. It can be about solving a problem, maybe it’s one that nobody asked you to solve, but you took responsibility for it. It could show up in there, what I always call tiny jobs, but tiny jobs teach big lessons that help us chart their course. Maybe you have a family where the oldest child has to stay back at home to help with childcare needs for younger kids, because that’s a need of the family, right? Maybe it is mentoring somebody in their part-time job. Maybe it’s advocating for somebody. Maybe it’s being the calm person that helps recalibrate everything, everybody else, when things go sideways in the cafeteria, in the lunch room. See, it can be influencing without being the loudest voice in the room. You don’t have to lead the organization or start the organization to demonstrate leadership. There there’s a place for introverted people. I know the loud people seem to get the best attention, but leadership, I know from career coaching and supporting business professionals and young people, leadership is not a one-size-fits- all. Quiet isn’t the opposite of leadership, right? We need to know this. We need to know that you don’t have to go out and start something.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  06:53

So, if you’re thinking like, that’s just not who my kid is, Lisa, they’re not going to lead anything. Well, because they’re You’re probably saying that because you’re like, they’re not unusually assertive or highly social. I want to reframe this because here’s why it matters: Employers, even colleges, even those with apprenticeships, they’re looking for skills, but the skills need the evidence. And it’s not just enough anymore to possess the skill. Eventually, your young person is going to have to show that they possess it. College bound or not, they’re going to have to show it when they’re applying for a job, an apprenticeship, an internship, or that first career position, when they’re trying to make make that move out onto their own two feet. Because people aren’t going to say I mean, they do employers want a strong leader, but they’re not going to just say like, Oh, are you a strong leader? They’re actually going to reframe this, and they’re going to say, Tell me about a time when you did this. These are behaviorally based interview questions. That’s even what college applications are asking, right? Behaviorally based interview questions. And that, my friends, that’s when the proof comes in. And if you’ve been working on accumulating evidence all along We talked about accumulating evidence back on episode 238, if you want to listen to that. I first of all started that episode saying like, If you have to write the Why This Major college essay, they’re not just asking about your major; they’re asking about your evidence. So, that could be a good reframe for you if you want to go back and listen to that one. But when they say, Tell me about a time when, you go back to the evidence that you’ve accumulated, and that becomes your proof. So, as we head into a new season, fall, whether you have a high school student, a college student, a recent graduate from high school or college that’s looking to chart their path, their career path, let’s talk about a four-part process that we can help support them in, so they even begin to see themselves differently, as you do, too. So, step one: let’s start recognizing it. Let’s recognize what counts. What we all obviously know counts is, Oh, I started this organization, or I was elected to this position, or I hold this title. Instead of that, here’s what I want you to begin doing as an adult, whether it’s your kid, or you’re a teacher, or you’re a counselor: start looking for behaviors rather than titles. So, be the sleuth. As the adult, be the private eye who puts it under a microscope, and ask yourself first: where are they already taking responsibility? Where are they already having influence? Are they initiating, helping, organizing, solving, advocating, getting others involved, right? So, the first part’s on us if we’re going to support them, because it’s overwhelming to them and they’ve got imposter syndrome, so let’s help by looking for the evidence that we can bring to them. And then when we see it in them, even these quieter, smaller behaviors that aren’t loud and at the front of the room, name it. Okay? So, first step: recognize it. Be a sleuth. Second step: name it. Sit down. Have a conversation. How often we are rushing through life, right? And life requires that frantic pace of us many times. And we don’t always slow down to reflect and have quiet conversations. You know, I’m going to drop this episode in September, but today as I’m recording this, it’s mid-August actually, and I have a conversation cue in every newsletter to get your family to slow down and talk about something meaningful that helps them through this process of getting ready to launch well. And the one that I did this week was, What have you learned about yourself this summer? So just the last three months, what have you learned about yourself this summer, and let’s talk about it, right? Besides identifying something that they’ve learned about themselves that might help them chart a career clarity course, I also want us to model slowing down and having reflective conversations. Not everything has to be rooted in action. So be the sleuth, recognize it, then slow down and help name it.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  11:25

This is really important for your young person who, they are seeing everybody else’s social media highlight reels of the loud leadership, right? So instead of saying like, See, you really are a leader. This happened, that’s going to backfire. They’re going to call you out on that. They’re going to shut down. You just created tension. Recognize and say like, Oh, I see that you just helped that out. And then talk about: was it initiative? Did they solve a problem? Did they calm the feelings of everybody else in the room? Get curious and talk about the evidence. Celebrate this. We also, besides taking not taking time to reflect, we often don’t take time to celebrate the small milestones. So quiet conversation, identify it in a non-weird way (we can be weird as parents, right?), and help them discover this along the way, too, than trying to assign an identity. Let me say that again. What, by slowing down and having this conversation, you’re helping your young person make a discovery of what actually is already inside them. Now, I always say we start with self-awareness. We build the self-awareness. So help them identify and discover what’s already in them, recognize it, rather than just assigning an identity and slapping a label on it. And then once that you’ve done that behaviorally based instead of title-based, now we set out to the action of developing it, intentionally expanding it. So let’s go back to the mom that I cited earlier at the beginning of this episode. Audrya started to see it before her son did. But then, you know what he did? Once she named it and they discussed it, he began intentionally expanding it because his mom let him see something of him that was already there, but he just didn’t name it. And so, this is fantastic because we we’re always wanting to get them to take action, but maybe we need to be quiet first and give them the insight to get started on taking the action. And so, when you do this, here’s what we do with it: we say, Okay, I saw this thing. It’s pretty cool. Let’s talk about it. What happened? Get curious. Don’t tell them. Ask them. And then you say, Okay, that’s a real strength. Where can we take that existing strength and begin to grow it? So for Audria’s son, it was in 4-H. For somebody else, it might be their tiny job or a volunteer role, a family responsibility, an internship, a project. Don’t chase the title. Chase the opportunity to practice the skill and the strength. This is career development, okay? This will help them intentionally design their future. So, we recognize it, we name it, we develop it, and once we’ve developed it, which by the way is going to be lifelong, we’re going to always continue to develop it. But once we’ve begun to develop it, then we can begin to showcase it. This is where they’re communicating about the proof that of the skill or the strength, the leadership, if you will, that they’ve accumulated. So the next time when the college application, or the apprenticeship or internship application, the scholarship application, or that first big career ask you, Tell me about a time that you demonstrated leadership? They’re no longer overwhelmed, shut down, or scrambling for an answer. They’re naturally and easily retrieving the evidence that they’ve built along the way. They can explain what they did, not just, I was part of 4-H. They are actually going to be able to talk about how they contributed. So the goal isn’t to convince your young person that, oh, they’re a leader, cuz like let’s be honest, not every young person is necessarily a natural-born leader. Our ultimate goal is for them to become better observers of who they actually are. And once they see that, they’ll begin to see the leadership opportunities, like Audria did when she saw something different in her son. So what might that look like? You know, for you, a very different parent of a very different kid, it might be problem-solving, persistence, empathy, persuasion, organization, analytical thinking, relationship building. And once they begin to You see it, you name it, you recognize it, remember, in a non-weird way, then they’re going to begin to intentionally develop it, and this starts to become grounded in something real, not manufactured.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  16:49

We are heading into the fall season, and it’s always a new start. It’s It’s fresh, white piece of paper that we’re going to write on, right? And if you’re seeking, how can my kid develop their leadership this year? Let’s go back and focus on the behaviors and who they are. Sometimes career clarity doesn’t start by seeing a new career; it starts by seeing your young person differently. So now, if this has gotten you super curious about like what did how did Audrey begin to see this through this process, we always start our career confidence framework with self-awareness before we filter who we are to get to the careers we should consider. And part of that equation is the Birkman Personality Assessment. If you want to see that and start to see the things that she saw, and I’ve seen other parents over the years see these same same, I don’t know, realizations of who their child are to the point where they even tear up— I’ve seen it over and over again—go over to our website, flourishcoachingco.com/ Birkman, and you can download a sample Birkman report of the customer report that we use with young people that helps them to understand themselves in a way that is grounded in young people language, not something that’s hard to understand. And that, my friends, will show you how Audrey and others begin to call out development, leadership, and growth, along with career clarity for their own kids. Okay, it’s fall. Let’s make it a great season as we push towards the end of 2026. I hope you had a great summer. I’ll see you again next week.