Blog #2 The future is in (mostly) good hands..

Twenty six years ago (eek!!) a good friend of mine, Lieutenant Karl Maddaford (now Major I think?) and I (Lieutenant Foster at the time) cooked up a plan with a friendly Rotarian Todd Hanlon. The big idea was to leverage Officer Selection Board command tasks, as a way to help Rotary improve its Annual Rotary Youth Leadership Award.

It was epic! And man did they shine!

The Rotary Youth Leadership Award is an annual event run by Rotary across various regions globally and helps emerging leaders on their leadership journey. The ages vary, but in the recent cohort these 'young' people are now between 21 and 29. Well on their way.

There is a selection that all awardees go through and positions are hotly contested. There are also representatives from Rota Pacific and this year included a number of awardees attending from Fiji and Samoa. If you're interested in finding out more about RYLA, or have an emerging leader in mind that you'd like to nominate, please go here: https://ryla.co.nz/

While on RYLA, the awardees experience two phases. A learning phase and a demonstration phase.

In the learning phase, awardees are exposed to wonderful presenters and activities which expand their understanding of what happens in the world, what adversity others have overcome and how to collaborate across diverse groups. This phase is full of energy and Rotary use its significant pulling power to bring in truly impressive speakers and inspirational groups. Speakers include super athletes, captains of industry and a Prime Minister has been known to visit and share their perspectives on Aotearoa.

In the 'demonstration' phase, awardees get to exercise what they've learnt in a real situation where they will push themselves past previously assumed limits. Like waaaay past.

In the photo above, you can see that we're on the top of a peak that is in the Auckland Harbour. It's a wonderful view there and they're all happy to have made it to the top.

Happy because they have also carried with them, all their gear (probably a weeks' worth of warm kit, accommodation and food), plus ~150kgs of extra stuff as part of that particular challenge. Some of those things carried are fragile, some of those things are unwieldily, some of those things are just damn heavy. You get the picture.

The real learnings (I know it was the demonstration phase) happen at the early hours of the morning. They get to choose how much they'll push themselves and at every point in time, someone has been appointed to lead the group. That leadership becomes very real in the early hours of the morning when getting people out of their warm sleeping arrangements is a genuine challenge.

Reflecting on this image, yes, it's pitch black. There was a new moon and the competitive forces in this group had them stop for only a few hours in the middle of the night. They then chose to crack on with the tasks ahead.

Team, I'm being a little cryptic about specifics, because this aspect of RYLA is a bit of a surprise.

To be honest, in my opinion, it doesn't really matter what we tell anyone about this phase.

It's not until we're actually there, with a lot of kms behind us, very few hours of sleep and leaning on / inspiring each other to overcome the challenges of the environment (which doesn't give a sh!t about us).. That's when we get to really look in the mirror.

This team, like all the other teams going through this rose to the challenge. They really lift themselves and it's epic to watch.

So why the comment about 'Mostly' in good hands?? What's that about??

Team, that's about you. What are you doing to demonstrate good leadership to the next generation of leaders? A cornerstone of good leadership is investing in others. Are you lifting your weight?

At RYLA, for this phase, we use current and ex-military leaders. Trained and assessed for their leadership skills. These Directing Staff provide a safety net (hypothermia is real in a NZ winter) as well as navigation (you can get lost), but most importantly a structured approach to leadership coaching. This enables a consistent and safe experience for all ~100+ awardees.

Back to you then. Our up and coming leaders are already taking the initiative, but we as established leaders need to create the environment for those leaders to learn. To experience speed wobbles. To maybe test some ideas that are unworkable. But ultimately develop their own leadership capability for the next generation again.

This isn't about handouts and it's not about charity.

I can assure you that the reason why everyone is so happy on the RYLA website is that all have emerged from something genuinely hard. It's a real struggle to get your mates out of bed at 0'dark hundred in the middle of winter, just try it tomorrow morning with your family!

So!! What can you do??!

If you aren't already mentoring someone, get onto it! Choose someone who you know in your heart are already on their journey. Your job is to help them climb more efficiently, put some gas in the tank (think: encouragement) and be a sounding board when things turn to custard and they're frustrated and pissed off.

There is a lot of talk these days about millennials this and entitlement that. The truth is that we've always had people who are just cruising through life, it's nothing new. Let them cruise.

Go find some emerging leaders who are putting themselves in harms way and help them through those experiences. These future leaders are AMAZING (much more onto it than I was at that age!!) and I'm so glad I got a chance to be a small part of their journey.