What will become of the leaders of tomorrow if they don’t have positive role models and good mentors? Just look at the news and listen to people talking. Our youth is in desperate need of leaders they can look up to, someone that guides them and whose example they can follow. Someone who teaches them how to lead a positive, optimistic, and hopeful life. Someone who will educate them on how to respect others, how to lead with compassion, live with integrity and be determined and reliable people who take responsibility for themselves and who don’t act with a sense of entitlement.
5 Attributes of a Positive Role Model.
There are many adults whether they are parents, political leaders or even workplace managers, who fail to set good examples and who neglect teaching and guiding opportunities for their immediate youth. John Wooden said, “Being a role model is the most powerful form of education.” Each one of us should be a positive role model. Let’s use it to produce the next generation of great leaders by developing the following attributes:
1. Be inspirational and motivational.
People who are motivated, positive, optimistic, and inspirational serve as “energy givers” to others. It is contagious. If the youth can see that nothing gets you down, or that you got up and learned from your failures, they will be inspired to do the same, because they will see that it made you stronger and wiser.
2. Make and actively live the right choices.
Whether it be to live a healthy lifestyle or contain your anger, how you communicate or listen to someone, or even how you respond to feedback. Choose wisely because you don’t know who is watching you mimic your actions. Become involved with community work and show that you choose to care more for others than yourself.
3. Show determination and follow through with projects.
Don’t let people see you quit. If you give up, the youth aspiring to be like you one day will see it as the easier route to take. Teach them to enjoy the journey, to endure and then reap the rewards at the end.
4. Let your action speak louder than your words. Respect is key.
Handle the youth with respect, but show them how to demand respect, respectfully, in return. Respect might be something that is not being taught in their homes, but it is very much a necessity to function in the outside world. The youth need to see how they should respectfully treat someone who disrespects them and how they should treat others as they would want to be treated.
5. Resolve problems the correct way.
Problems are inevitable and so is getting angry. It is natural. Again, this might not be as obvious to the youth who’s watching you as it is to you, but many might think that problems can get solved with violence or screaming. Many don’t know how to deal with their anger or emotions, especially at that age when they are angry at everything. Some might even feel entitled – like the world owes them something. Be that as it may, it is your job as a good role model to teach them calm, effective, and efficient problem-solving and anger management skills. Get angry but solve the issue or problem properly and in the correct manner.
Live the life of a role model like it is second nature. You never know who is watching, who you might influence or who you might save. If our youth had more positive role models, our society would not feel so broken.
One of the greatest challenges in our society is to be a good role model to the young leaders of tomorrow. It is, however, every adult’s responsibility to develop and educate each future generation in skills that make or break, not only a person but the institutions where they study, where they work and within their relationships. Maya Angelou said: “Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren’t, we should behave as though we are – cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes.”