Leading or led? A critical exploration of youth leadership development

Abstract

Leadership development for youth is an increasingly large global business that has to date lacked sustained critical scrutiny. Our inquiry is based on application, interview and reflection data from participants in a university-based leadership programme, capturing them at the point they transition to early work lives. We argue that leadership has become such a prevalent career and work discourse that the leadership development that happens in youth offers a unique window into new organisational workers, the leadership development industry and a complex leadership theoretical terrain. A set of five ‘leading’ discourses – separate, suspended, small, self and semi – were identified that invite critical inquiry. While youth leadership scholars have previously noted the suspended and separate discourses, we empirically refine those and offer the other three (small, self and semi) as important to current contestations between leaders, leadership and leadership development. In doing so, we question whether current leadership development for youth creates substantive leadership capacity in individuals, organisations or society.

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