Recently I wrote an e-mail to an educator, a person who understands education and also knows how to work with youths. This person also properly understands leadership. I say "properly" because actually very few really have a proper grasp of it. This is especially true because there is the wrong perception that leadership is about authority, position, power rather than humility, values and working for others.

It happens that this person works in a higher education learning institution, and I thought he would be in a position to think about how schools and colleges could promote leadership as a tool to transform not only the self but also society.

Can a school or a college truly promote this type of leadership? Can such form of leadership be promoted by revisiting the existing curricula or by simply creating opportunities for young people to step up and positively challenge themselves? It could be a way for young people to learn about what's going on in the society and in the world at large.

Think about the number of hours wasted on social media. As a consequence, they become passive, lack initiative and become alienated and frankly, not that useful to the wider society.

But we can change this. That's why I strongly believe that schools and colleges can really step in and play a positive role to help youths focus on the things that really matter to them. These can be anything: a personal project or finishing a book or starting one or trying to excel in a sport or in a hobby you feel passionate about or something you are just curious about. It can also be about trying to do better in school or college, being more dedicated to your studies.

Possibly and ideally, such an undertaking could also be focused on doing something tiny but good for the society: volunteer for a social activity that your school or college is starting or join any club that provides meaningful opportunities of self-development while also doing something positive for the society. It means that it is not just up to institutions promoting management or social work or development studies.

What can institutions do to nourish such an attitude, the idea of making a meaningful effort towards something that can make ourselves and the society better?

What about setting up leadership circles to promote positive change? Think of a circle as an informal setup that could bring students together to work on themselves while also doing something for the society. A circle could also bea club or it could also take the shape of a centre or unit within a school or college, a formal or semi-formal space where the participants push themselves to be better.

They could pick up issues of contemporary interests – climate change or good governance or understanding why politics is almost always a dirty game. But it could also be about food security, public health, architecture and urbanisation or how to make the society truly more inclusive.

They could discuss (not debating in the sense of winning an oratory contest), listening to each other and try to formulate some ideas, some new propositions.

A Good Leadership circle or even a more advanced and institutionalised centre could also facilitate students to do some qualitative studies on the most pressing issues faced by the society. It could be about finding ways to integrate leadership studies in the existing syllabus. In a sense, the undertaking of working to promote good leadership could be considered as a sort of "umbrella" concept because it can be the link, the connector, to a variety of initiatives already being in place. In this way, good leadership works as a sort of aggregator and catalyst at the same time, bringing together different actions or facilitating new ones based on what already exists.

Generally speaking, there are two preconditions for a learning institution to be able to promote good leadership. First, it is not just theory but something that is applied on the ground and acted upon. It can be a project, even a tiny one, or can be an op-ed or a discussion with some resolutions and proposals, or a small event. Second it is something driven by persons, in this case, the students.

I was impressed, years ago, when I met a student from Uppsala University, a leading European university based in Sweden. He was a member of the Centre for Environment and Development Studies (CEMUS), which defined itself as a "student-initiated, interdisciplinary centre". CEMUS is a joint initiative of Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and it is totally driven by students who work collaboratively and in partnership among equals with the faculty of the two institutions.

It means educators need to let it go, step back and enable their students to take the lead. While CE-MUS is clearly focused on sustainability, climate change and biodiversity preservation, what really matters is the approach adopted, that is, frankly quite revolutionary.

Let's not forget that leadership is, first of all, about leading our lives with positive intent, self confidence and a keen interest to improve our lives while also thinking and doing something for the society. If you think about it, this should be the core of any learning process.

The society is desperate to have citizens who can say "no" when they mean it but do not dare to do so; citizens able to stay aligned to their values and remain accountable to themselves and others; that they are able to work collaboratively and listen to each other.

By the way, I have not yet received an answer from the educator. Hopefully, he got intrigued by the message and is curiously open to brainstorming about implementing the good leadership where he works. This would already be progress towards making the society more intent on promoting the good leadership. Would other educators be tempted to do their own part?

Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE and of The Good Leadership

A version of this article appears in the print on August 17, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.