Courageous Leadership: The skill that school doesn't teach but everyone needs

By Kaeto N. (Kaeto was one of 54 finalists chosen from 106 students in 33 countries for a global speech competition. Below is her speech. Congratulations Kaeto.)

I remember my friend telling me how classmates treated one of the students in their class. They often mocked him and never really understood him. He just needed kindness and a study buddy. At the time of graduation, when playing the “most likely to” game, the students told him that he would be the most likely person to fail in the future. Everyone heard. No one spoke up except my friend. She had also experienced a great deal of cruelty over the course of the year. She told the friends and the teacher that this was not how to treat others and this was unacceptable. It took a lot of courage for her to speak up despite what she had experienced all year long. 

We need more courageous leaders. 

Courageous leadership matters because if you want to be a leader then you have to have enough courage to do the right thing. For me, courage is about doing what is right even when you are afraid. We see this all the time at school, in sports, work and in even in the government - when students are being bullied and need help, when students might not be performing as well and others laugh or don’t even offer to help, in sports when players miss a goal, and when leaders don’t make the right decisions for their employees, customers or citizens. It is important to be courageous because it allows you to act, grow and make hard decisions even in the face of fear.

I’m sure we’ve all had hard decisions to make before. Leaders make those decisions too, sometimes hard and sometimes easy, but all leaders have to have the courage needed to make those decisions. In the real world, we need courageous leaders. Courageous leaders build trust with the people, they take accountability for their actions even if it may be risky, they admit mistakes and have hard conversations instead of just ignoring it. Our world would not be the way it is today without courageous leadership, it would be filled with chaos, lying and cheating. That's why courageous leadership matters so much, because courageous leaders do the right thing, no matter what.

Doing the right thing is important because when you do the right thing it lifts people up. It makes the world a better, healthier place where even the quietest of voices can be heard. By not speaking up you send a message that what people are doing is okay even though it’s not.

Courageous leadership is a skill that needs to be taught from a young age. The idea of leading usually scares younger people, but being taught this skill from a very young age builds that courage to help them face hard decisions.

Last year, a group of my friends and I wanted to help girls in war torn regions. I know that these girls were facing medical issues, food insecurity, the loss of their homes, sadly maybe the loss of their families, they don’t have access to school or their friends. All of these challenges can affect their self-esteem and self-worth. 

It only took 30 minutes from my life as I worked with two other girls to design self-confidence and self-esteem building activities. We wanted these girls to know that they had friends from across the world, thinking about them and wanting to help. 

My friends and I designed multiple activities including the "Olive Tree" Self-Esteem Activity where students use an olive tree to reflect their past, present, and future. The girls would write down things that make them feel proud including their personal achievements and acts of courage. 

One of the girls wrote back to us and shared that she used to feel like she had no talents, she used to hate being asked what she was good at. But after the exercise she realized that she does indeed have many talents within her that she never noticed. I was so touched by her message. Thirty minutes ended up becoming a life long invisible bond of friendship and my small act of courageous leadership.

We need to bring more of these connections into our classroom by creating leadership opportunities in our schools. By connecting with people in our neighbourhoods and communities, we can create bonds by volunteering, helping around the neighbourhood, and more! Creating strong relationships and bonds that can last a lifetime.

We can start by encouraging contributions during group projects/activities. We could design situations that help students focus on their leadership skills, encouraging them to stand up for themselves and other people. We can also add courses for courageous leadership development. If we added leadership courses or even connections projects, transitioning into the real-world will be a lot easier. In my call to action: I suggest that we start small by adding a club at our school that helps to encourage acts of courageous leadership. Members would choose one local problem to tackle together every month. 

The world is counting on us.