“The adolescent years are critical in developing future leaders whose decisions and actions reflect universal human values. Our nation's future depends on these values, wherein lie the character and leadership of our youth.” (Fertman and van Linden, 1999) Rebekah Smith PDI Capstone May 2011

Project Overview Research has shown that leadership is an observable, learnable set of practices (Kouzes & Posner). It is possible to teach new and enhance current leadership skills to teens through immersive summer experiences offered by BBYO, Inc.? Is it possible to calculate a ‘Leadership ROI’? Leadership ROI is defined as the impact of an immersive leadership program as measured by leadership skills gained and lasting impact divided by the cost of the program for the teen. (Leadership ROI = leadership skills acquired + lasting impact on behavior / cost of program for the teen).

Initial Findings There is no current measure for leadership skill acquisition at either CLTC or ILTC. Every summer, an average of 600 teens across North America attend a session of CLTC and an average of 200 teens attend ILTC. BBYO has the opportunity to track and measure the leadership skills acquired by these teens each summer as a direct result of domestic immersive leadership programs. Creating and instituting this metric (leadership skills acquired) will measure the resulting behaviors of alumni of these two leadership programs and offer additional, quantifiable depth and insight to both the programs. Leadership ROI cannot be determined until a measure for leadership skills gained is created for both CLTC and ILTC.

Evaluation of Research - CLTC Researched other prominent teen organizations including The Girl Scouts of America and 4H. CLTC Teen and Parent Surveys were modeled after the 4H survey. Survey includes aspects from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens in addition to general leadership skill areas. Timeline: Survey given a total of four times (start of program, completion of program, 6-months out and one-year later) Administered to teen, as well as parent and chapter advisor.

Evaluation of Research – ILTC ILTC does not integrate the same level of consistency in leadership development programming from one year to the next as does CLTC. It is recommended that BBYO utilize The Student Leadership Practices Inventory (Student LPI) by Kouzes & Posner (2005) in a similar capacity to the manner in which The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is used in the CLTC curriculum. The Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership: Model the Way Inspire a Shared Vision Challenge the Process Enable Other to Act Encourage the Heart SLPI-Self: Student leadership version of the thirty-item questionnaire for self-assessment of frequency of use of The Five Practices (used by student leaders to rate themselves on the thirty leadership behaviors). SLPI-Observer: Observer version of the thirty-item questionnaire asking for constituent’s assessment of the student leader’s frequency of use of The Five Practices (used by observers to rate student leaders on the thirty leadership behaviors).

Leadership ROI – Next Steps Because the focus of the project shifted to include the development of leadership measures for both CLTC and ILTC, the calculation for Leadership ROI is proposed and not Leadership ROI = leadership skills acquired + lasting impact on behavior / cost of program for the teen. In order for BBYO to effectively calculate Leadership ROI, the measurements and tracking methods proposed must be implemented for one full programming year for CLTC and ILTC participants.