Early Leadership Training and Its Relationship to Communication Skills, Self-Esteem, and Problem Solving Skills among Adolescents The research study explored the efficient of the youth leadership programs in Charleston County. The methodology applied to this study is a qualitative embedded case study, which answers the what, how and or why questions of social phenomenon. The researcher conducted interviews with eight previous participants of youth leadership programs. The results of the interviews will be reported in this chapter.

Results

The purpose of the qualitative embedded case study was to explore the perceptions of participants who previously participated in an adolescent’s leadership training program on how the program influenced their self-esteem building, communication skills, and problem-solving skills within Charleston County in South Carolina.

The research questions therein were what are the perceptions of the training program and experiences of past participants of adolescents’ leadership training program, what are the perceptions of past participants on how the adolescents’ leadership training program affected their communication skills, what are the perceptions of past participants on how the adolescents’ leadership training program affected their self-esteem, and what are the perceptions of past participants on how the adolescents’ leadership training program affected their problem-solving skills?

To answer these research questions, 8 response questionnaires were received from volunteer respondents who were randomly chosen and anonymously answered the questions in the questionnaires. The respondents were chosen from a pool of people who had previously undergone the youth leadership programs and were willing to share their experience and the influence this training had on them.

From the data collected in the questionnaires, it can be seen that most of the respondents are people who underwent the adolescent leadership training in the past. This goes hand in hand with the fact that most of the respondents have been in leadership positions even though most of them have been in the job industry for a relatively short period of time. It is indicated from the statistics that 75% of the respondents have been in some leadership position within their organizations. As a matter of fact, 63% of...

The data also indicates that 88% of the respondents had undergone some form of adolescent leadership training.
Among the people who had undergone the adolescent leadership training, 88% of them admitted that the training had a significant effect or influence on their communication skills and that they acquired some new skills that hitherto they never had. On being questioned on their self esteem and how it might have been influenced positively by the adolescent leadership training, 75% of the respondents agreed strongly that the training actually added some value to their self esteem. Some respondents admitted that they had a bad self esteem before their contact with the training and this changed after the training, while others indicated that the training worked to boost the self esteem which they already had developed through life before the leadership training.

The last section of the questionnaire was to find out if the respondents felt that their problem solving skills were in any way impacted by the adolescent leadership training and a significant 88% agreed that the training helped in boosting their problem solving skills, or even developing it altogether to be what it was at the time of encounter with the questionnaire. On being asked what lessons or skills that the adolescent leadership missed out yet they felt that ought to be included, 75% of the respondents indicated that community service and work ethics are two areas that needed coverage in the leadership training. The general submission as seen from the questionnaires was that the adolescent leadership trainings, though diverse in nature as seen from the responses, were important in modeling the new employees in their places of work, ready for leadership positions as early as 5 years into their work posting. The data collected indicates that the same high number of respondents who had attended the adolescents leadership training also showed to have benefited from the training in terms of their individual attributes and skills being made better by the training.

Interpretation of the results

The figures in the questionnaires as depicted above show that majority of the respondents…