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(3/2004) - What persuades a young person to accept her own greatness? What allows her to see the connection between the fire in her heart and her destiny to change a small corner of the world or the world itself? What convinces a girl that the world needs her discoveries, her solutions, her creations?

The torch of leadership will be passed to a new generation. That is a certainty. But is it also a certainty that the new generation will be prepared to lead? Yes, if the adults involved with young people make it their priority.

Nurturing girls' potential is serious business. Our job as parents, teachers, mentors, and friends is to let a girl know what great promise she has. A girl will recognize that promise if she knows we have seen it too.

Before there can be leadership, there must be the idea of leadership. That is, before a young person can face her future with solid confidence, she must have a clear idea of her power to achieve and her ability to lead. The time for a girl to catch a glimpse of the powerful person she is to become is between the ages of 14 and 18. It is then that she can envision herself twenty feet tall and think the unthinkable about what she can accomplish.

That is where we begin. But leadership is also about passion, about caring deeply, and, then, about creating a vision for change in the mind's eye. What matters to adolescents today? Sit with a girl long enough and she'll tell you that she worries about the environment, about violence in the world, about children without hope. Her conscience is stirred. Sit with her a little longer and she will start to talk about her plans. The groundwork for a new approach is forming.

It is when this adolescent energy is bursting forth that adults can help to give it shape. The high school years are about more than acquiring knowledge, as important as that is. It is in these formative years, when a girl begins to clarify her ethical positions, that we must be there to encourage her to connect her vision of how to make the world better with her ability to accomplish the task.

Leadership takes practice also. It's all about a girl's working up the nerve to speak out in a meeting, to edit the school paper, to run for class office, or to find an elegant solution to a perplexing problem. Confidence grows cumulatively. In an enlightened community a girl has the chance to be in charge and the encouragement to try.

As we approach national elections, there is widespread lament over the apathy of young voters. And it is not surprising. This country, this world, needs the strength, compassion, and brains of all its young people. But participation in democracy begins with young people knowing that they count. It is hard to be apathetic when the large idea that fills your mind and soul is that you can, must, and will make a difference.

In Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate, author Catherine Whitney writes, “Each of the women senators understands that at any given moment, she could have a substantial impact on someone's life.” Think how we would feel about the future of this society if we thought that every young person was prepared and committed to making a “substantial impact.” Then, look at your daughter, granddaughter, niece, the neighbor's girl. See in her the cure we haven't discovered, the peace treaty not yet written, the great art not yet created. Now, tell her that the world needs what only she can offer. Tell her that the world is waiting for her.