Taylor Studniski shares top leadership lessons for young people 

Learning leadership skills early helps young people prepare for educational and professional opportunities, according to Taylor Studniski.

Whether a teenager or young adult is seeking new educational challenges or a career transition, leadership skills are essential. Taylor Studniski advises leadership basics also enhance many other areas of life and that she still relies on skills acquired from the National Society of Leadership and Success to guide her professional life.

Taylor Studniski highlights leadership styles

For a student or young worker stepping up for the first time, realizing that leadership looks different for every person and in unique situations is essential.

In the NSLS, Taylor Studniski learned about seven varieties of leadership: servant, transformational, identity, autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire and coaching. Knowing what skills are needed in a specific situation and personal tendencies to lead in specific ways can help when approaching sticky situations involving contemporaries or coworkers or pushing forward toward new goals.

A servant leader empowers the team while a transformational leader relies on motivation and tends to lead by example. Identity leadership means elevating the individual through self-help and clear delineation of personal values while autocratic leadership best describes those who strike out alone or act without soliciting a lot of input from others.

A democratic leader takes in a lot of information and is always up for a lively debate while a laissez-faire leader is more like a mentor offering help by request but giving team members plenty of opportunities to make their own decisions. Coaching is exactly as it sounds, according to Taylor Studniski, with team members receiving lots of one-on-one time and attention to grow and develop new skills.

Studniski offers ways to implement key aspects of leadership styles

To become a dynamic leader, Taylor Studniski recommends embracing the personal development focus of identity leadership at the start. By identifying personal strengths and weaknesses, it is easier to approach new opportunities with a plan that emphasizes strengths.

A strict personal assessment also makes it easier to empathize with others, including future subordinates or coworkers on a team. This can make it easier to embrace aspects of servant leadership and transformational leadership.

Developing and sharing personal tools and lessons for success is central to strong leadership, so as new skills are mastered, embrace opportunities for coaching, and use a laissez-faire approach with team members who need more latitude.

As confidence grows, it can be necessary to embrace personal strengths and make autocratic decisions at times. A capable leader is able to do so from a place of intelligence and information without ego taking center stage. When a hard decision is made, it’s important for a leader to own it — whether the outcome is positive or negative — and learn from it.