Building Bridges

Since 1970, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has focused on advancing the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. CCL defines leadership as "a social process that enables individuals to work together as a cohesive group to produce collective results - results they could never achieve working as individuals." At CCL we believe that everyone is a leader, not just those in positional roles.

The traits and skills we describe in this book are derived from a multi-year research project aimed at specifically understanding youth leadership. From our research conducted with thousands of students in grades 3-12 across the United States, we developed the Social-Emotional Leadership Framework, which defines three dimensions of student leadership, and 14 attributes that comprise each of these dimensions (these attributes are described in this book). Students displaying Social-Emotional Leadership are aware of themselves and the impact of their actions (Leading Self) and are able to work well with others (Leading with Others) on projects that are important to them (Changing Your World). To learn more about how to develop youth leadership, see Social-Emotional Leadership: A Guide for Youth Development by Leis & Reinecke.