We’ve all heard the saying that “leaders are born, not made.” But is that really true? What traits make someone a leader? And can those traits be learned or developed?

Nevertheless, leadership is not about position or title. It’s an approach to life and work that anyone can adopt. And when you do, it will show how you live, work, and relate to others.

“It is easy to see who are leaders and who are not. You see it in the way they act and command awe from others. Leadership is a lifestyle; you will know someone is a leader when you one,” says Lincoln Beck, human resource specialist of Biz Hero—the premiere resource website for all things business.

Do you have what it takes to be a leader? Read to find out!

1. You Are A Visionary

A leader knows where they want to go. They have a clear vision of the future and can articulate it in a way that inspires others to follow them.

You have the capacity to see the bigger picture and have a clear understanding of the goals you want to achieve. When you’re a visionary leader, you see opportunities where others see obstacles.\

2. You Are Confident

Leaders are confident in their abilities and believe in their own vision. They are not afraid to take risks or make decisions. When you are a leader, you take risks and make decisions without being afraid of the consequences. You can handle criticisms well and learn from your mistakes.

3. You Are Passionate

The passion of a leader is evident in everything they do.  Leaders have the power to motivate others with their passion and commitment. They have a strong sense of purpose and are always looking for ways to make a difference.

When you’re passionate about something, you put your heart and soul into it. You’re always looking for ways to make a difference and inspire others to do the same.

4. You Are Innovative

Leaders are always excited to look for new and better ways to do things. They are open-minded to change and willing to experiment.

Having an innovative mind is one of the key traits of a leader. You also have the ability to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions to problems.

5. You Are Resilient

When you’re a leader, resiliency is one of your most important qualities. Leaders are able to bounce back from setbacks and learn from their mistakes. They have the strength to keep going when things get tough.

No matter what life throws at you, resilient leaders always find a way to get back up. You learn from your mistakes and use them as opportunities to grow and become even stronger.

Unleash The Leader In You With Burn Bright!

If you want to develop your leadership potential, it’s important to start with the right mindset. Believe in yourself and your capacity to lead people. Be open to new ideas and willing to take risks.

Burn Bright’s Leadership Camp is your key to unlocking your true leadership potential. Explore your passion as you make a difference in the world. When you have the right mindset, anything is possible.

Start developing your leadership skills with Burn Bright’s Leadership Camp today to reach your full potential. Contact us now!

“Only the leaders that use effective communication can successfully navigate an organisational change.” says team leader and startup business loan expert Shane Perry of Max Funding.

The foundations of successful leadership are rooted in defining how you want to lead and what you can do to communicate your visions to your team effectively.

To understand further, read on and see how excellent communications skills make a difference among leaders.

What Makes Communication An Important Skill For Leaders?

One thing that leadership demands is interacting with people to motivate and energise others. However, exchanging ideas alone is not enough for one person to become effective and impactful among their colleagues.

Building solid connections, inspiring the team, and the ability to articulate a path to move forward are only some of the things that make most successful leaders.

Here are the reasons why learning good communication skills make great young leaders:

1. Building Alignment

Having a clear goal of what you want to achieve as a team fosters productivity. To make this possible, a leader must communicate their vision and direct their colleagues where the group should head next. Building alignment within the company helps create strategic decisions and avoids wasting time trying to do things that are not beneficial to the process.

Leaders should also recognise that communication is not limited to verbal exchanges. There may be moments where how you act towards others speaks more of what you value and want to incorporate into people.

2. Strategy Execution

As a leader, the primary job is to pilot great ideas and develop game plans for progression. However, some concepts and approaches can only expand and grow with the help of your group.

Communication skills allow leaders to open a two-way channel where sharing lessons, giving support, and formulating suggestions and improvements can prosper.

Team members who feel heard and involved in the project are more likely to feel encouraged and benefit the entire team process.

3. Connection

Leaders have significant influences on organisations. The emotions and approaches they incorporate into their messages can affect their colleague’s performances.

If the leader speaks with optimism and confidence, the team will feel motivated and inspired. On the other hand, speaking with confusion and a sense of bother can also cloud the message relayed.

It is essential to speak with conviction and have a consistent tone when communicating with your team, especially in times of crisis. This simple action can help others be inspired and believe again in the vision you started with as a team.

Groups can create strong connections over time, which allows them to grow as they continue to learn from each other.

Unlock Your Young Person’s Leadership Potential

No leader is born overnight — it takes time and effort to become someone you would want to look up to. Communication is one of the skills a leader must have to inspire and uplift others to become better versions of themselves. Adding to that, it can also help you enhance your confidence and sense of responsibility.

By attending Burn Bright’s Leadership Camp, you can discover more ways to develop your leadership skills. Your experience with us will help prepare you for your future and how you handle life’s surprises.

Contact us today, and let us find ways to make the most out of your leadership skills!

Written for Burn Bright by Maya Carter-Jones.

 “Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.” —Henri Frederic Amiel

Passion is what guides us and directs us toward purpose, motivation, and success.

Want to help give your young people a framework to finding their passion? Want to show them how to discover and embrace their strengths and reach their potential?

There is no magic formula, but we’ve got some handy tips below!

Give everything a try

You don’t know how cold the water is until you feel it, you don’t know if you like coffee until you sip it, you don’t know if you love something until you try it!

You never know until you give something a go. A lot of young people are afraid to try new things, are wary of failing, and think there’s nothing they’re passionate about. Encourage and model trying new things. Get out there, try new hobbies, read new books, learn about new topics. Who knows what will get them feeling that spark of interest, that fire of passion?

The job of a young person is not to know but to TRY.

What do you stand for?

What we get passionate about is strongly connected to our core beliefs and values.

We at Burn Bright get super passionate about all things leadership because we believe in and value the power and importance of individuals, to have their own influence and to be influenced well!

Most young people we work with have never sat down and worked out what their core values are, what makes them uniquely them. So have a think about what the things are that you believe in and care about most, and let them guide where you look to discover your passions.

What do you get really excited or angry about?

There are times when the fire just rises in our belly, when we feel angry or frustrated or really excited about something, and the cool thing is, we all feel that way about different things! So pay attention to what provokes these extreme emotions.

If you get really angry at situations that seem unfair, maybe you have a passion for justice or compassion. Or if you get really excited about sport, maybe you have a passion for competition or teamwork. Notice what stirs you, what interests you, even if it’s a negative emotion.

It isn’t set in stone

Your passion isn’t set in stone, or written down and you just need to discover what it says. They may grow and change with you through life. This means we need to stay on the journey of discovery, examining our passions.

We live in an awesome time where you can make a living out of pretty much anything and through some pretty crazy passions. So get excited, knowing you can try a whole lot of different things, and there are many passions out there that could light your fire!

So those are four steps to begin a passion-discovering journey.

Keep guiding your young person towards wellbeing and meaning. Help them discover their passion, the spark inside every one of us that ignites them to live a meaningful, full, and purposeful life. Give your young people the gift of discovery through our Passions Digital Course – learn more here: Digital for Parents

Focusing on flaws will not build your young person up.

But finding their strengths is a surefire way to encourage, uplift and empower them!

We’re passionate about strength-finding, keep reading to find out how to be a strength-finder for your young person.

Put the Rose-Coloured Glasses Back On

We love a bit of science and evidence-based understanding. Well, a deficit mindset is a scientific description of when most of us tend to look at a situation through the ‘what’s bad or wrong’ perspective. It’s a natural default; extremely helpful when you’re in the jungle and spot the beady eyes of what might be a hungry leopard. Not so helpful when talking to our wild teenagers, however.

A deficit mindset can make us miss potential opportunities, make us react negatively, increase our stress and anxiety, and prevent us from moving forward or developing resilience.

So when we see a situation, maybe the kitchen has been left an absolute mess after your teen has tried baking brownies, put the rose-coloured glasses on. Reframe. Yes it’s a mess, but isn’t it great they tried! And isn’t mess a normal part of life. And what a great opportunity for them to practice cleaning up after themselves. Hopefully you even get a bite of brownie too 🙂

Discover and Use Your Strengths

When you know your own strengths, it’s easier to find them in others. We can reframe our thinking and apply our strengths in different situations.

One of my top strengths is Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence. When I first learnt that, I wasn’t too sure what to do with it. Sure, I love a sunset and flowers fill my heart with joy. But how can that help me at work, or with my family and friends?

But knowing my strength was the first step. Then I took notice and discovered how it made me happy and calmed me down. And how I am good at finding excellence in other people. So I am using those strengths to make situations better.

And when someone is quiet, I notice their strength of thoughtfulness. When someone dreams a bit too big, I appreciate their creativity and optimism. When someone cracks jokes throughout a meeting, I appreciate the humour and zest they are bringing to a situation. It’s all about perspective.

Combine Your Strengths to Become Superhuman!

Imagine a world where we were all the same. Maybe we are all strong in humour or all strong in self-regulation. What a boring world. We would either be very silly and get nothing done, or have absolutely no joy and fun in a very regulated world!

See, it’s our differences that make us strong.

The great thing about strengths is that when we combine them, we can be superhumans! We need other people’s strengths to balance our weaknesses and vice versa. We want a world of colour, full of differences that can push us and grow us and support us. We learn from other people’s strengths and all use our individual strengths in collaboration in a team effort.

Learn More…

Take the time to discover your strengths, you could even do this together with your young person.

Check out the 24 character strengths at http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths.

And we have digital module options which focus specifically on finding and building your young persons strengths- check it out here https://www.nationalleadershipcamp.com.au/digital_courses/high-school-forging-unshakable-foundations-pack/.

Whether they ask them aloud or not, these questions are always lingering on the front of our young people’s minds. In social settings we see them finding ways to adapt to people around them, weighing up who they should respect and who might be their allies.

Navigating life as a young person can feel like searching for the next puzzle piece without knowing what the bigger picture looks like.

Your community is the puzzle.

Finding a community gives us a place to feel like where we belong and can thrive. For a young person, that community can be their school friends, an activity group, a sports team, or a local group. Whatever it may be, there are some foundational factors that all communities have in common that allow them to exist sustainably and consistently develop with the people who participate in them.

Before we dive into what those factors are, why should we care about communities? Why does it matter if we help young people build them?

The formation of a young person’s identity is a consistent process of decision-making, explicit and implicit feedback, and self-evaluation to inform our next decision. As this process occurs in the minds of our young people and we watch them change and develop each time, we recognise very quickly that we can’t determine the outcome of a process. We find out that young people will arrive at their own conclusions based upon the inputs provided to them and make the best decision for action that seems appropriate in the context they find themselves in.

While we can’t control the process and output, we can influence the factors the environment this happens in and the context they find themselves having to make decisions for. We influence this by helping them to construct communities around themselves that align with their values and encourage growth in positive ways.

But community for community’s sake isn’t always appealing. That’s where our foundational factors of community come in.

For a young person to participate in the community, they have to want to be a part of it. In fact, that rule applies to more than young people. It matters to us all. When we participate in something because we feel we have to, not because we actively choose to participate – our commitment doesn’t last long enough for us to actually see the results. Don’t lie, we’ve both been there. (Like that gym membership that’s paid for every month without ever setting foot in the gym, am I right?).

This brings us to the first foundational factor: A Common Goal.

A Common Goal

Communities that are built upon a common goal create a mechanism for people to unite over something they both care about. It also provides a general direction in which a person can find ways to participate in activities with their community. For example, a community with the common goal of making you a better dancer is an opportunity for you to practice a passion of dancing and provides a very actionable way of acting out the goal: dance classes. It is a both reason to involve yourself in a community, and something that keeps you coming back to stay involved over time. But what about when we aren’t feeling like it and are struggling to find the motivation to pursue our goals?

Skin in the Game – Investment

Accountability is a significant factor in building a community. It keeps us involved and helps us to stay on track with our goals. One of the most significant forms of investment for young people is social investment. Knowing that other people are counting on them is a good motivator to keep young people involved. If social investment isn’t doing the trick, it may be worth exploring what is most valuable to the young people you are working with and investigating ways they can leverage that to become the investment that grounds them in their community.

It’s important to remember, we aren’t trying to trap young people in a community. Rather we are providing a way for our young people to involve themselves in their community on a more intentional level. When a young person has a deeper level of investment in their community, their community is able to bring them more fuel to pursue their goals and grow in themselves. Once it feels established and begins to become habitual, then it can start to become a symbiotic relationship between the young person and their community. This relationship, however, can’t be all work and investment – it has to be enjoyable too.

Know Your Community. Like Your Community.

Communities are built on solid friendships and shared experiences. When we make the conscious choice to build those friendships, we take a large step forward in finding a place where we belong.

For young people, making that conscious choice is not something that happens out loud. We don’t often see young people starting conversations with “I would like to be your friend”. We do, however, see them naturally gravitating towards people who share the same interests. Finding common ground is a great launchpad for a friendship. It allows you to have enough meaningful conversation and shared activity that you become comfortable enough to learn more about someone else.

If we build these communities on the basis of a common goal, we already have a uniting factor and common ground between people. The last thing we need to provide is room for those friendships to develop in the conversations between activity. If everything is wall-to-wall, we limit the interaction of the people to whatever is structured for them. In our communities, we must allow young people the opportunity to build those relationships both intentionally with relationship activities and organically with space between structure and an open environment.

Where Do We Begin?

So these are the foundations of how we can begin supporting our young people to build their communities. Starting the process is the most difficult part, especially if you are looking to convince your young person to start involving themselves.

To begin, take a look at what your young person already actively involves themselves in. Starting with something that they care about gives you the answer to the first step here: a common goal. It also makes for a slightly easier sell 😉

Looking For a Head Start on Community Building?

Since 2014 Burn Bright has invested in building connected communities for over 77,000 young people across Australia and New Zealand. We believe every person has the ability to lead themselves and lead others, and doing so asks our young people to understand who they are influencing and how they are influencing them.

If you would like your young person to further develop the way they interact with their communities and understand their leadership capacity, take a look at our High School Lead With Impact Pack where we have 4 digital courses that guide your young person on a journey of exploring their own leadership and how it can be used to create positive change, powerful communities, and service-based leaders all around us.

We desperately want our young people to have the self-confidence to go out, be themselves, flourish, and make a positive difference. For that, they need the positive talk and self-confidence to face the world.

There’s no real quick fix to self-confidence. But just like a plant, begin watering that seed and you will see something in the future bloom!

Where does self-confidence come from?

Like all intangible things, self-confidence doesn’t just come from one source and isn’t easy to trace.

It comes from both outside and internal factors.

Factors like self-belief, past experiences, levels of wellbeing, experiences, history can all affect someone’s self-confidence. But it can also be built and grown. There are many ‘quick fix confidence hacks’ online, but here are two key points we believe really effects self-confidence.

What do you believe about life and yourself?

What we believe about life and ourself will ultimately shape our self-confidence.

If we believe that our value comes from our appearance, we will never have high self-confidence unless we think we look ‘good’ enough. Or if we believe we need to be liked to be important, our self-confidence will always be effected by this. So we need a self-awareness as to what our values and beliefs actually are, and whether they are helpful and true.

Let me encourage you to examine your beliefs and values, and think, are these actually MY values, or have these been given to me by others, that I don’t necessarily hold to be true within myself. Because you, rockstar, are awesome, and your self-worth doesn’t need to come from others opinions or transient things like appearance!

Who do you surround yourself with?

The words and actions of others affect us.

If we surround ourselves with people who only talk negatively about themselves or about us, that will affect how we perceive ourselves. Include people in your life who you admire, who have a strong level of self-confidence, and who encourage and uplift you. And become that person for others too.

“We rise by lifting others” – Robert Ingersoll

So say to yourself and to others, “Hey I’ve got this! You’ve got this. And you’re awesome.” We sure think so 🙂

Other ways to build your self-esteem includes examining your self-talk and taking healthy risks. If finding actionable ways to boost your self-esteem or the self-esteem of another young person is what you’re interested in – take a look at our digital course packages which can be done in your own home! A great first step before taking the next one.

Well, reaching and connecting with young people is a part of of the fabric of what we do at Burn Bright, and we’ve put together our years of research into the best evidence-based approaches for you to do the same.

Self-Determination Theory

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is one of the best and most well-researched theories of human motivation.

When we hear the words motivation, we might think of rah rah motivational speakers who make you feel good for a few days before everything returns to normal.

However, self-determination theory is a theory of motivation and growth that leads to sustainability.

All humans have a base set of psychological needs, and satisfying these needs is essential for healthy development, engagement with the world around us, effective behaviour and psychological wellbeing.

SDT tells us that a person is able to become self-determined when their needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence are fulfilled. We’ll dive into what these mean in a moment. It also tells us that people are happier when they are able to pursue things that are in line with their own goals and values. This makes them feel responsible for the outcomes of the goals and has a huge impact on a person’s mental health and vitality.

“The term self-determination refers to a person’s own ability to manage themselves, to make confident choices, and to think on their own” Deci, 1971.

SDT was originally theorised by Deci and Ryan and you can find extensive research and further information on their website – http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/.

What are the 3 Core Components of SDT and How Do They Relate To Us?

Let’s explore three components of SDT and how they can relate to our young people.

1. Autonomy
   • Autonomy is feeling in control of one’s behaviour and being able to self-initiate and self-regulate their own behaviour. For young people to gain this autonomy, they need the freedom to choose to become more self-regulated.
2. Competence
   • Young people need to believe they have the necessary skills and abilities to exercise and expand their capacities. We need to have the basic skills, judgement, and strength to be able to achieve the goals or tasks we are working towards.
3. Relatedness
   • Young people need to feel connected to others as they live and work. This takes the form of being involved in social groups, communities, and shared initiatives with other people. This feeling of connection, not only to other people, but also to groups and causes that they are passionate about creates a sense of fulfilment that promotes intrinsic motivation in positive behaviours.

How to Use This Theory

So what does all of this mean for us as parents?

The more internal a goal is, the more autonomy a young person has. When young people are more connected at home and with peers, and when a young person feels like they have a basic level of skill, they achieve more success in the tasks they are trying to complete.  

Autonomy without accountability is anarchy (especially with teenagers).

When we talk about giving young people autonomy the first reaction is always, “well if I give them autonomy then they won’t do anything useful or helpful for their lives”. But providing autonomy doesn’t mean handing over the keys to the kingdom and telling your teenager to do whatever they want. It means working with them to set autonomous goals and helping them to establish how they might be accountable to those goals. We need to teach our young people to self-regulate without their parents’ intervention.

How Do We Teach Them? – The Coaching Approach

It’s important to take what we at Burn Bright call a ‘coaching approach’. Essentially this means 2 key things:

• Ask, don’t tell
  • This goes back to the origins of coaching psychology as we know it.
  • Learning to be a great question asker and asking questions that help young people explore and reflect on their own emotions, feelings, thoughts and behaviours is better for a young person’s self-efficacy and autonomy.
•  Help to set goals
  • Coaching is all about helping people to set goals and work towards them. So how are you supporting your young person to set goals?
  • Remember that goals don’t need to be big lofty things and may be short term or long term. They may be weekly or they may be for ten years’ time.
  • Remember that some goals may not be helpful for young people, so ensure you are listening to what they are wanting from their goals.
  • Sometimes starting with small goals and building them up to bigger ones is a great way to start with goal setting.

6 Ways You Can Use Self-Determination Theory at Home with Your Young Person

1. Change the way we have the conversation around home chores and tasks
   • Instead of nagging and asking over and over again for chores to be done, sit down with your young person and have a conversation along these lines: “We need chores to be completed for the effective functioning of this household and it’s important for us to all contribute. Its over to you to choose which chores you would like to do and what time frames you would like to do them in.”
2. Self-determination theory tells us that external rewards aren’t sustainable
   • Motivating through bribery may seem easy in the short term and it probably is! However, SDT shows us that external rewards or goals created for us are less motivating and aren’t good for our wellbeing.
   • This may mean you need to avoid the temptation of short term rewards in favour of helping your young people to set goals that align with their values, what’s important to them and their ideal self. This may be more challenging then the short term win but trust us in the long term gain!
3. Make sure home is a place of relatedness
   • We know how important connection is to our basic needs and at Burn Bright we say your wellbeing starts at home! Often young people spell love T-I-M-E even if they don’t look like it they are craving connecting, so find the best ways of supporting that.
4. If your young person doesn’t have the competence for a task then help them to find it for themselves.
   • Rather than showing them what to do or telling them what to do, help your young person to find out the information for themselves. Maybe it’s watching a YouTube video together, or driving them to a workshop or a course, maybe it’s doing something together so you’re both learning.
5. Keep accountability through question asking as opposed to telling
   • It can be quite tempting to just dish out how you are feeling to your young person by telling them everything they have done wrong.Try instead asking questions and get them to tell you what might have gone wrong in a situation. This may help your young person to have a greater autonomy over that behaviour in the future.  9/10 times they will know what has happened and what needs to be changed for next time.
6. Don’t reward success – celebrate effort
   • Lots of research shows us that celebrating effort increases goal achievement in the long run. Even if your young person wasn’t successful in the first instance, working with them to celebrate the effort they put in will help them to try again. If they were successful celebrating the effort, that will help to see that goal progress is as important as the success of the goal for their wellbeing.

So next time you’re about to react to something your young person has done, remember the science. Give your young person the autonomy, the keys to competence, and the relatedness they need and crave.

Our evidence-based work with young people has spanned over 7 years, working with more than 77,000 young people across Australia and New Zealand. Our team is passionate about developing and backing the potential of all young people, and we are always learning and creating new ways to do that.

One of the ways we aim to achieve this is by packaging our learning, knowledge, and experience into interactive and easy-to-use digital courses that you can use with your young person. If you want to learn more about our evidence-based work with young people and how you can introduce this to them, click here to take a look at our courses.