Hello dear listeners,

In this episode we talked with Dr. Ivan Ivanov a professor of international politics from North Macedonia, and the Director of the School for Young Leaders, an intensive international programme that helps young people learn leadership skills, now in its 17th year, with over 650 alumni around the world.

Ivan grew-up believing young people have enormous potential but learned that potential doesn’t turn into influence on its own. It needs opportunity, encouragement, and someone willing to take young people’s ideas seriously.

He defends that younger generations are curious and want to learn and participate, but they show up in their own ways. Growing up in the midst of economic crises, a pandemic, and constant uncertainty, they become pragmatics. That’s not a flaw but maybe more of a survival strategy. Ivan argues for a “new pragmatism”, supporting young people in having ambitious values paired with honest, realistic paths toward them. “Idealism without action is performance; pragmatism without values is opportunism”.

We talked about hierarchy and how structures give us accountability. But young people are far less willing to accept authority just because of a title. They want competence, consistency, honesty and a leader that can listen. Leadership training many times focuses on public speaking, Ivan said, but rarely teaches young people to ask good questions or hear someone whose experience differs from their own.

There as a theme that kept coming back during the episode, fear versus hope: how much of today’s political language runs on fear, and how fear is exactly what stops us from listening to each other.

His advice to youth workers was simple and a little uncomfortable: stop letting young people “choose the colour of the poster,” and start giving them real budgets, deadlines, and room to fail and reflect.

Ivan left us with something youth workers can take as inspiration: technology can inform young people, but it will never teach them how to be human. That’s still our job.

School for Young Leaders

International Center Alliance Of Civilizations

For any ideas, comments, or suggestions, feel free to email us at [email protected].

This episode is part of the Inception of Learning project, funded by the Erasmus+ Youth Programme, which supports youth workers, trainers, and educators in the context of Generation Z and Generation Alpha.

#YouthWork #Leadership #IvanIvanov #SchoolofYoungLeaders #GenZ #GenAlpha