
Rodrigo Gouveia
The apparent paradox of youth leadership
The cooperative movement has always been keen to affirm the need for youth leadership in cooperatives. However, empirical evidence drawn from my experience shows that participation of young people in boards and management bodies of cooperatives is very limited. Worse than that, not only there aren’t enough young people in those roles, but there are also too many seniors. I’m citing empirical evidence and my own experience because, unfortunately, there is no robust research or data on this issue at global level.
In this blog post, I am not looking at cooperatives that gather mainly young people has a way to support their entrepreneurship and employment needs. I will be referring to ‘mainstream’ cooperatives, where the question of integrating young people in leadership roles is of a different nature.
When confronted with the fact that there are not many youths in leadership positions and with the question of why this is so, the usual answer that managers and directors give is that leadership roles require experience, which young people don’t have. And this is where an apparent paradox emerges: if leadership positions require experience, how can young people be leaders if, by the time they have experience, they are no longer young? Experience comes with time, but time is the enemy of youth.
The reason why this paradox is only apparent, in my opinion, is that experience should not be a prerequisite for leadership, particularly in collegiate bodies. When you have a decision-making body composed of several people (like a board of directors in a cooperative), you can – and should – have a complementary mix of skills. Experience is only one factor in this mix and does not need to be a characteristic of all leaders. Young leaders will probably bring new ideas and skills that other, more experienced people, may not have. For example, young people have, generally, more acute knowledge of new economic and social trends, as well as a better understanding of new technologies.
But even in individual roles and management positions, it is important to have young people, particularly in cooperatives where the management system is more flexible and less hierarchical. If young people are given the opportunity to be integrated into a team that has different skills and is working together, they don’t necessarily need experience because that can probably be found in other parts of the management structure. Although there is no definitive evidence that young people are more innovative that others, there is evidence that a mix of young and old within an organization will boost innovation. So, it is not a question of choosing between one or the other, but rather of integrating the two in the decision-making processes of a cooperative.
Unfortunately, what we notice many times in cooperatives is a rigid, sedimented, and hierarchical management structure, where positions are filled taking into account mainly the years of experience. In those types of structures there is not much opportunity for youths, and the outlook of the cooperative itself will probably discourage them from looking for work there. This is one of the main reasons why some cooperatives find it difficult to attract young people, therefore missing out on potential best talent.
It is not enough to have a management structure that promises youth the possibility of leadership in a few years’ time if they work hard. It is necessary to offer them concrete and immediate opportunities where they can demonstrate their leadership skills from the start. This requires a proactive strategy to involve and integrate young people in leadership roles.
Evidently, this strategy has to be well planned and thought of. It will be doubly frustrating, for the cooperative and for youths, if the conditions put in place don’t allow them to succeed. There needs to be a program in place to attract, train, and support young people in their roles, not just blindingly opening vacancies for them. An example of this is the establishment of quotas for young people on Boards. If this is done just as a form of whitewashing, to check a box, or for publicity reasons, or even if it is done out of true conviction but is not accompanied by a specific training and support program that helps young people to become effective directors, it will probably be a failure. This may even be counterproductive because it will discourage more active youths in favor of those who may be content to just have the position without putting effort into it.
It would be interesting to have more research on this topic, particular at regional and international levels to compare different percentages of participation, approaches, and results. A comparison between cooperatives and other types of companies that are in direct competition with them in a given sector, would also be very useful.
It seems obvious that cooperatives, given their values and principles, should be interested in integrating young people in their leadership teams. There is real intention, truth and conviction behind all the cooperative movement’s declarations on this issue. What is missing, in my view, is a sense of urgency and finding the best way to do it.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of PromoCoop and its partners.
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