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I spend a lot of my time thinking about student leadership.

As Director of the Center for Leadership at Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Boulder, I have the privilege of working with extraordinary students across campus. We believe deeply that leadership potential exists within us all and universities have a responsibility to help students discover it, develop it, and decide what they want to do with it.

But spending so much time focused on leadership at Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Boulder, I sometimes forget just how much extraordinary student leadership exists beyond our campus.

The Greenhouse Scholars Summer Symposium was a very good reminder.

Every August, Greenhouse Scholars brings together more than 120 exceptional college students for four days of learning, connection, and leadership development. These are students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds who aren't simply preparing for successful careers. They are thinking seriously about how they can use their talents, experiences, and education to make a difference in their communities.

I was invited to speak with them about something I have been thinking about a lot lately: how to lead with optimism through change and uncertainty.

And I walked away actually feeling more optimistic about leadership.

A Generation Built for This Moment

We often talk about how difficult it is to be a young person today. Students worry about political polarization, technological change, economic uncertainty, climate challenges, and fundamental questions about what the future of work will look like. And we grown-ups worry that all of this uncertainty has left young people less prepared for the future. What if the opposite is true?

What if it has been preparing them to lead?

That was one of the central ideas I shared with the Greenhouse Scholars. Resilience isn't the absence of hardship. It is adaptation in the presence of hardship. The strongest people aren't those who never bend; they are those who learn how to bend without breaking and charge forward.

Greenhouse Scholars and Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Buffs have already had a remarkable amount of practice. They have lived through challenge and proven to themselves and others that they can overcome and keep on leading. We may be tempted to tell this generation to slow down, wait their turn, pay their dues, or lead the way previous generations have led. But I think we should get out of their way.

Give them the tools. Give them the opportunities. Give them support and coaching. Challenge them. And then let them go. Because they are going to be fierce. And I think they might just rule the world in a more just, humane, and sustainable way than those of us who came before them.

Leadership Doesn't Begin With a Title

One of the final questions I asked the Scholars was: When did you become a leader?

Research suggests that people answer that question in very different ways. Some believe leadership is something they've always possessed. Of course, we know that leadership can be developed.Ìý

Others point to the moment they received a formal position or when others started to see them as a leader. This is a problem because while you are waiting for permission to lead, you could have been changing the world.

The last common answer is that you become a leader when you start behaving like a leader. So let’s start with that. You behave as leaders in how you engage with one another, the questions you ask, the ambitions you share, and the way you support your communities.

Greenhouse Scholars is doing exactly the kind of work our world needs—finding remarkable young people, investing in their potential, surrounding them with a community that believes in them, and then trusting them to lead. And if the Greenhouse Scholars are any indication, the next generation isn't waiting for the future.

They are already leading it.Ìý