They Are Watching You
Lessons from a Decade of Youth–Adult Partnership
Lesson 4:
Leadership Is Caught Before It Is Taught
One of the greatest privileges of youth engagement work is becoming an adult that a young person genuinely respects. One of the greatest responsibilities is recognizing that they are learning from far more than our workshops, presentations, or advice.
They are learning from us.
When strong relationships develop between youth and adult partners, young people naturally begin to model the behaviors they see. That is how leadership is learned—not through lectures, but through observation. Long after youth have forgotten what we said in a training or debrief, they often remember how we handled disappointment, conflict, uncertainty, and success.
This places an enormous responsibility on every adult working with youth.
Every Interaction Is Teaching
We spend considerable time teaching communication skills, conflict resolution, professionalism, public speaking, advocacy, and teamwork. Yet youth are paying just as much attention to how we respond when things do not go our way. Do we stay calm during conflict? Do we gather the facts before offering solutions? Do we speak respectfully about colleagues, even when we disagree? Do we honor commitments? Do we acknowledge our mistakes and make them right?
These everyday moments become the curriculum. Leadership is modeled long before it is mastered.
Leaving Well Is Part of the Job
One lesson that became increasingly clear over the years is that youth notice how adults leave organizations. Sometimes leaving is the right decision. Sometimes it is unavoidable. But whenever possible, how we leave matters. Providing appropriate notice, completing responsibilities, supporting a thoughtful transition, and speaking respectfully about colleagues demonstrates professionalism.
Equally important is providing closure for the young people with whom we have built relationships. Whenever appropriate, they deserve the opportunity to say goodbye, ask questions, and understand that the relationship is ending because a job is ending—not because they did something wrong or were somehow not worth staying for.
For many youth, especially those with histories of loss, trauma, or abandonment, the absence of a thoughtful goodbye can reopen old wounds. When adults instead disappear abruptly or abandon commitments without closure, they model that commitments are optional and that difficult conversations can simply be avoided. That is not the lesson we want young people to carry into their own leadership.
Professionalism Doesn’t End at 5:00
Youth also notice what we do outside formal meetings. Whether on or off duty, adult partners should avoid drinking alcohol, smoking, or engaging in other behaviors in places where youth are likely to observe them. These activities may be legal and socially acceptable, but young people rarely separate our personal and professional identities as neatly as we do. Once we become trusted mentors, we are always, to some degree, representing the role.
Never Weaponize Youth
Perhaps the greatest test of our integrity comes when we are navigating imperfect systems. Youth advocacy exists because systems need to change, and adult partners have an obligation to help young people recognize injustice, ask difficult questions, and develop the skills to advocate for change. But there is a profound difference between empowering youth to use their own voices and using youth to advance our own agendas.
Adult partners should never recruit youth into workplace conflicts, encourage them to take sides in disputes among adults, undermine the chain of command, or ally with youth against the very systems they have been entrusted to help improve. Most egregious of all is using young people to advance our own personal or professional agendas. Whether motivated by frustration, ideology, ambition, or self-interest, weaponizing youth is an ethical violation of the highest order.
In the moment, youth may willingly step into those battles. They trust the adult. They believe they are standing up for what is right. They may even feel empowered by the role they have been given. But over time, many come to recognize that they were not exercising their own leadership—they were carrying someone else’s agenda.
That realization can be deeply damaging. Young people who have already experienced broken trust, betrayal, abandonment, or exploitation are especially vulnerable to feeling used once again by an adult they admired. Rather than strengthening their leadership, it reinforces the painful lesson that trusted adults may ultimately put their own needs ahead of the young people they claim to serve. The damage to that young person’s trust—and to their willingness to engage with future mentors—can be profound and, in some cases, irreparable.
Our role is not to create followers or foot soldiers. It is to help young people develop the judgment, confidence, and independence to form their own conclusions, make their own decisions, and speak with their own authentic voices. If the youth sound exactly like us, we have not empowered them—we have replicated ourselves.
Progress, Not Perfection
Being a role model does not require perfection. In fact, pretending to be perfect may be one of the least helpful things we can do. Youth benefit far more from adults who admit mistakes, apologize sincerely, repair relationships, and continue learning. They discover that leadership is not about never failing; it is about responding to failure with integrity.
The greatest lessons we teach are rarely the ones we plan. They are taught in ordinary moments, through ordinary choices, by adults whose actions consistently reflect the values they hope to inspire. Leadership is caught before it is taught, and in youth engagement work, we are always teaching—even when we do not realize anyone is watching.