Covid decreases the leadership quotient of the next generation

2 years of inactive leadership development is a generation of leadership skills lost!

Decline in Leadership Skills

Imagine a whole cohort of Sec 1 entering the school in 2020 and experiencing so much physical isolation for 2 long years. They hardly experience most of the essential life skills like collaboration, discussion, brainstorming, negotiation, and event management that produce character development like resilience, focus, positivity, etc. And this cohort is expected to be leading their juniors when they are Sec 3 in 2022. Without the above-mentioned life skills and character development, they are expected to have leadership skills to impart the skills that they themselves have not developed sufficiently.

The above secondary school scenario is replicated in the P3, JC1 and Uni year 1 in 2020. With all the schools from primary to university losing much of those life skills, character development and leadership skills, a whole generation of youth in Singapore are ‘weakened’.

I would urge every person who is in the leadership sphere to intentionally place more focus to rebuild the foundations through intentional coaching and mentoring.

Decline in Gangsterism

However, there seems to be one blessing in disguise in the next generation; the possible decline in gangsterism.

The key factors for the breeding of gangsterism in schools are (a) social gathering (2) long duration (3) movement for invasion

(1) The place of gathering to build ‘brotherhood’ through conversation and learning of habits (culture building of the gang) is essential. But with social isolation through Covid19 safety measures, the first factor is gone.

(2) Gathering day and especial at the night is crucial to test their loyalty to one another as they need to exhibit priority for brotherhood. Again, with the strict measure, the second factor got a big hit.

(3) Movement for invasion means to move as a group to another place to create havoc or to another community to harass is minimised. Thus the third factor is crippled.

Do you have a different view of the above 2 declines; leadership skills and gangsterism among the youth?