Youth not such a bad thing

Age has been in the media often of late, both within the local context as well as on a much larger international stage. Many have argued that with age comes experience which is a requirement for a leader, and therefore that youth is a handicap.

But is that really the case? Is there a counter argument? Is not youth deemed enviable and desirable most of the time? Does age have anything to do with leadership qualities after all?

Many young people achieve. Many professions require youth. The entertainment and sporting worlds are prime examples. Anyone over the age of 30 in these professions is lucky to still find work yet the successful ones achieve recognition and bank balances that the rest of us can only dream of if they are good at what they do. There is the assumption, however, that young people can excel in these professions. The business sector in the western world is also full of 'young' achievers. So much so that in most sectors it is assumed that if one has not cracked it by early to mid-30s then he is never going to at all. Therefore, here too there is the assumption that young people are as good by their mid-30s as they ever will be.

After all, whose criterion is youth measured against? Ask anyone between 10 and 28 and they will tell you that mid-30s is actually quite old. And maybe they are right.

By mid-30s, most people have experienced marriage, parenthood and bereavement. Except for the surgically enhanced they have shown signs of sagging skin, greying hair, unexplainable weight gain, eyesight decline, some sort of memory loss and a preference for wine and sushi over burgers and beers. Most people in their mid-thirties have grown up. That is a fact that the generation approaching its second youth may not want to admit. Such admission would warrant those hanging on to prominent positions held since their mid-thirties to make way for fresh faces to take over.

The same cannot be said of politicians, one might assert. Political decisions affect numerous lives so evidently they must be taken by the experienced. Political decisions should not be taken lightly. Political decisions should also not be taken by those so set in their ways that they cannot see the world has changed. Surely they must not be taken by a leader alone. Experience is sometimes said to be the name people give to their mistakes. Thus, someone who has made only mistakes could be considered immensely experienced.

However if he has learned nothing in the process then all that experience still will not a good leader make. Also, there are leaders who do a world of good in their early years but with experience, complacency or God's Gift Syndrome set in, in a few instances they manage to wipe out all good memories and are remembered in history only for their horrendous final years.

Leadership qualities do not focus on experience. A leader needs a good dose of intelligence and a bottomless well of common sense. He needs to be a visionary with good ideas of what he wants to achieve. He must either have the skills to perform the tasks required to achieve this vision or else have the ability to realise that he does not have the skills himself. In this case he must then have the aptitude to communicate this vision well and surround himself with the right people who he can motivate and empower to help him achieve his goals. He must have the brains to filter the wannabes and hangers on, commonly referred to as 'yes men', from the real team needed to fulfill the vision.

Considering all this it could be argued that youth is therefore an advantage. The positive side to lack of experience and younger age is the fact that a person is not set in his ways. When one is younger, one is more open to change and flexibility. There is awareness that you have much to learn and are therefore more open to suggestions and to changing track when you realise that what you are doing is not working. You are more able to listen and to know what is going on around you because you have not yet developed the blinkers that come not necessarily directly as a consequence of age but surely as a consequence of the arrogance of those who think that they have reached the pinnacle of their career and who cannot be taught anything by anyone anymore.

A younger person's inexperience, if you want to call it that, can be not a negative but a positive in that it instils humility in the person, humility in the sense that it makes one aware that not only is he able to contribute based on his skills and abilities, but also that he has still a lot to learn. A simple fact that is true to everyone of any age but seemingly forgotten by many whom the world deems experienced.