How do we produce next generation leaders?

Questions like this keep popping up and they really amaze me because real leadership doesn't change with the generations. Sure, technology changes, people's attitudes change, markets change, etc. Good leaders adapt to all these changes but the fundamentals of leadership don't change. If you want to develop great leaders don't engage in hand-wringing about what the next generation will be like or how we'll deal with the next great craze like social media. Instead stick to the basics.

We Baby Boomers didn't do a very good job of helping Generation X become leaders. We're making the same mistake with Millennials. We seem to be letting them tell us what leadership should be instead of helping them learn what leadership is. It is a leader's responsibility to train new leaders and help them learn the basics. As they grow and develop they'll develop their own style so it would seem a good idea to help them understand the fundamentals early on.

Here are some of those fundamentals that should be the basis for all leaders.

Teach young people to have values. Good values. It's best to teach this by example.

Encourage learning. I'm appalled by the high school dropout rate in my state. Is that the fault of the schools? Maybe they are a part of the problem, but more responsibility rests on the parents and the culture in which the students live. These young people aren't dumb, but they're growing up ignorant. Some of them are already leaders and that should scare us.

Encourage risk taking. No one gets it right 100% of the time. When new leaders are encouraged to try new things and take risks, they learn. That also means when they take a risk and fail, it shouldn't be the end of the world. Help them learn from the experience. Good leaders are never happy with the status quo.

Teach young people to communicate…in complete sentences.

Never accept mediocrity. Good enough isn't!

Teach leaders about people. Spreadsheets, financial statements, profit and loss, etc are all things a leader will need to know someday but leadership is really about people and if a leader can't lead people, the rest doesn't really matter.

Don't let leaders start at the top. Be very suspicious of leaders who don't have supervisor or some similar title in their resume. That's where leading people happens; at the most basic level. Leaders without that experience often do bad things, not because they're evil, but because they don't really understand leadership.

Let's quit contorting ourselves into pretzels over next generation leaders and just provide new leaders with the basics. With those basics, the next generation will adapt to whatever happens in the coming years and do great things for their generation and the ones to come.

Without those basics, the leaders of tomorrow will become exactly what they don't like about the leaders of today.