My friends at Wikination.ca, the young men and women who are emerging as leaders, tell me that in their research, conversations, and personal experiences four leadership development needs appear to resonate with Young Professionals (YPs). Here is what they say they need:

Patience For a generation that has grown up in a culture and society that offers several different things instantly, waiting ten or fifteen years for their dream to become a reality will be much more harder than previous generations and that’s why they think patience is a leadership quality that must be developed in emerging leaders.

Character One of the learnings of recent corporate events is that bad character is basically acting opposite of what is expected of you as a leader in a certain position of power and authority. Good character is something that must be developed over time.

Awareness of Self If young men and women from Generation Y are going to be effective leaders in the future, they believe its crucial that businesses and organizations develop tools, assessments, and programs that help young men and women of this generation better understand themselves so that they can become more effective leaders in the future.

Experience. To get wins and losses will require present leaders, organizations, businesses, and companies to challenge young men and women strategically with tasks that build this extremely important leadership element. Once this experience is gained, they believe the sky is the limit for these emerging leaders within our culture and society.

So the time element is the challenge, to fast track development is the task.

Pierre