What is leadership? Can it be taught, or is it an inborn quality? How does a young person, in the controlled environment of home, school, and peer groups, learn to be a leader in a way that relates to the larger context of community and the world? From his involvement with high school students and educators in an international youth program, Robert B. Woyach has developed and successfully tested a refreshingly inclusive model of leadership for young people in school and community groups. In this book, Woyach presents his model in an upbeat, unpretentious style designed to engage the interest of teens.

To make his theory meaningful to his readers, Woyach uses real-life teen group situations – school clubs, extracurricular activities, teams, and school projects – to show effective use (and non-use) of these skills. Lively line drawings – sometimes utilizing cartoons or characters familiar to teens – encapsulate the author’s ideas. High school students will appreciate Woyach’s unique focus on leadership in the familiar world of school and civic groups, rather than the remote arena of the business world. They will also value how he humanizes leadership, showing how insecurity can increase a reader’s effectiveness. Finally, teens, accustomed to sharp divisions between authority and followers, will be intrigued by the author’s insistence on empowerment as the key to successful leadership. This guide will be a useful resource for teachers of social studies or courses addressing lifestyle issues such as self-esteem and individuality. Guidance counselors, school club supervisors, coaches, school psychologists, librarians, and others will also find it a useful resource for the teens they advise.