The Student Leadership Challenge: Five Practices for Becoming an Exemplary Leader

by James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner

A brand new edition of the bestselling book that helps students and young people to develop critical leadership skills The Student Leadership Challenge is based on four decades of research on what people are doing when at their personal-best as leaders. With an approach tailored specifically to young and emerging leaders, this guide introduces The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership operating system, incorporating stories of leadership development from real students, as well as reflective and critical thinking activities at the end of each chapter. Readers will have opportunities to engage in each of The Five Practices, building leadership skills that translate to real world applications. This fourth edition has been updated with new stories about topics critical to today???s youth, including climate change, social justice, mental health, and virtual learning. Included with the book is access to the online Student Leadership Practices Inventory, so readers can achieve insight into their current leadership skills. As a result of reading and interacting with The Student Leadership Challenge, readers will emerge with a concrete leadership framework and new skills that they can take with them, wherever the future leads.

384 pages, Paperback

Published May 7, 2024

About the author

Jim Kouzes has been thinking about leadership ever since he was one of only a dozen Eagle Scouts to be selected to serve in John F. Kennedy's honor guard when Kennedy was inaugurated President of the United States. Kennedy's inaugural call to action -- "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." -- inspired Jim to join the Peace Corps, and he taught school in Turkey for two years. That experience made Jim realize that he wanted a career that offered two things: the chance to teach and the opportunity to serve. It was in his first job back in the U.S. training community action agency managers that Jim found his calling, and he has devoted his life to leadership development ever since.
Jim Kouzes is the coauthor with Barry Z. Posner of the award-winning and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, with over 3.0 million copies in print. He's a Fellow of the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University and also served as the Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. Jim and Barry have coauthored many bestselling leadership books including A Leader's Legacy, Encouraging the Heart, The Truth About Leadership, and Credibility. They are also the developers of The Leadership Practices Inventory—the bestselling off-the-shelf leadership assessment in the world. Their books are extensively researched-based, and over 500 doctoral dissertations and academic studies have been based on their original work.
Not only is Jim a highly regarded leadership scholar, The Wall Street Journal cited Jim as one of the twelve best executive educators in the U.S. He is the 2010 recipient of the Thought Leadership Award from the Instructional Systems Association, listed as one of HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers, named one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America, and ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine as one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders. Jim was presented with the Golden Gavel, the highest honor awarded by Toastmasters International, and he and Barry are also the recipients of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award, presented in recognition of their extensive body of work and the significant impact they have had on learning and performance in the workplace.

Reviews

[Corey Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another read for curriculum review - truly shocked by how much Kouzes & Posner pack into this book. The first time I read this was in 2018 and it was quite the reflective journey to read this eight years later with my full undergraduate experience and four years of professional work under my belt.

Much of the practices and principles in this book are found in a plethora of other leadership type texts, but I appreciate how research based this work is and how consistently it uses stories as a means of clarifying and affirming it’s claims.

More than anything, I find myself extremely grateful after finishing this book. I have had the unique privilege to be led by some pretty phenomenal people in my life. From high school to college to my career, I have been the recipient of those who have led quite well and often in the spirit of Jesus. A gift I do not take lightly!

Leaving this read with a Post-it note of challenges for myself of how to better show up in my role and further develop the work that I’m responsible for to cultivate leaders of the next generation!

[Emma Kate Bates · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for class. It wasn't necessarily bad, but most of it was common sense and seemed like "this could've been an email" content.