Youth Leadership and the Development of Communication Skills, Self-Esteem, Problem Solving and Employment Opportunities The four-year longitudinal study by Marshall, Parker, Ciarrochi and Heaven (2014) showed that self-esteem is a reliable predictor of "increasing levels of social support quality and network size across time" (p. 1275). The idea that social support is a reliable predictor of self-esteem was not supported by the study's findings. The researchers measured the quantity and quality of self-esteem and social support levels of 961 adolescents over a five-year period to find that self-esteem is the key to helping adolescents develop into successful adult leaders with a wide range of networking possibilities open to them and a strong social support group behind them. This study directly links the concept of self-esteem to the greater possibility of employment as well, indicating that as adolescents with high self-esteem mature into adults, their ability to network and utilize support from social groups translates into better opportunities for finding employment. At the root of this study is the notion that youth leadership can be fundamentally bolstered by fostering self-esteem in adolescents as this factor is what helps individuals to produce qualities that are favorable to long-term outlooks. High levels of self-esteem promote the development of strong social circles. Self-confidence leads to pro-social behavior which generates sociality, builds social support, and increases one's likelihood of developing and maintaining a visible and meaningful profile into adulthood.

What Marshall et al. (2014) indicate is that when a young person is confident he or she is more likely to be aware of or at the very least perceive social supports within his or her own life. Self-confidence and self-esteem are qualities that essentially open a young person's eyes to the idea that he or she is not alone, that others recognize his or her attributes, skills, talents and abilities, that they are supportive of the individual's aims, desire his or her success, and want the best or that person. The social supports do not grow self-esteem but rather are acknowledged by the adolescent once that adolescent has developed a sense of self-respect, self-confidence and self-esteem.

The findings...

(2014) are consistent with the findings of Morton and Montgomery (2013) in their study, which assessed the impact of youth empowerment programs (YEPs) on adolescent self-efficacy and self-esteem. Morton and Montgomery (2013) showed that the impact of the YEPs on the development of self-esteem and self-efficacy was negligible -- the data produced insufficient evidence of youth empowerment programs having any effect on youth self-esteem levels. The two studies taken together indicate that self-esteem is a prerogative to empowerment development and not the other way around. Unless a young person has already internalized a sense of self-worth and value it is not likely to materialize from external sources attempting to empower the individual. The individual youth must feel and have a sense of his or her own empowerment initially. The question that remains is how this sense is developed and where it comes from. The problem of which came first, the chicken or the egg, is only partially addressed by these two studies -- yet both provide some insight into the complex nature of the issue and the relationship between the development of youth leadership via social supports and adolescent self-esteem. It appears from these studies that self-esteem predicates leadership and social networking development. If this is the case, the obvious question becomes how self-esteem itself is generated in the young person.
Morton and Montgomery (2013) suggest a re-focusing of research on the relationship betwen external forces (peer groups, social supports, youth empowerment programs) and the internal development of self-efficacy and self-esteem in adolescents. Their recommendation is for researchers to adopt "carefully coordinated mixed methods that assess process and implementation factors with experimental and quasi-experimental designs" (p. 31). This type of assessment could yield more evidence of the exact nature of the relationship between external factors and internal self-actualization and self-realization. The problem as it currently stands is that a lack of "rigorous impact evaluation in this area of intervention" remains and the lack of substantial or conclusive evidence regarding the impact of YEPs on self-esteem should not be taken as an indication that there is no impact. It…