The document discusses the roles and competencies of a youth leader for an intercultural youth project involving the EU and partner countries. It states that a leader is necessary to coordinate and structure the group's goals and activities. Key responsibilities of a youth leader include helping define goals, ensuring the group stays on task, facilitating discussions, and motivating members. Competencies include basic knowledge of their role and group leadership, understanding the project goals, and skills like structuring work, handling interpersonal dynamics, active listening, and being able to set aside personal views. While not needing to be an expert on the topic, the leader does require a basic understanding to properly facilitate discussions. The role of experts is then to provide knowledge and

1. COMPETENCES OF A YOUTH LEADER TO MASTER IN A YOUTH INTERCULTURAL
PROJECT WITH EU AND PARTNER COUNTRIES
The leader, cornerstone of the group
In the most limited sense of the word, a youth leader is the ”technician” that helps a group to
function well during meetings. In this paper, the word youth leader certainly has this meaning. It
can however also be used to speak of the organizer of a much larger project. We will not limit
ourselves to the strict technical sense of the word, but neither will we exclude it.
THE LEADER IS NECESSARY
Regardless of whether the group is small or large, it is necessary to have a leader. If not, you go
round in circles, do everything or nothing, get bored … In many groups, the leader is also
responsible for the group.
It is important that the leader is clearly recognized as such by the group, with the prerogatives
and obligations that come along with this role.
THE DUTIES OF A YOUTH LEADER
The youth leader is especially in charge of coordonating and structuring all of the steps that
group undertakes. This means:
 Helping the group to define its needs and goals, to put into practice what has been
decided and then develop it;
 Make sure that the group stays true to the goals that have been agreed upon and the
organisation that they have committed themselves to in order to accomplish the goals;
 To make sure the members of the group get along well;
 To lead the group during meetings (this will be explained in more detail below);
 To encourage the members to move forward;
 To watch over the general progress of that which has been decided by the members.
NECESSARY COMPETENCES
Learning happens by doing, and nobody is perfect from the start. However, a youth leader
should have:
 Basic knowledge of his role as a leader;
 Basic knowledge of the fundamental rules concerning group leadership;
 Basic knowledge of the issues discussed;
 A good understanding of the general goals of the project in which he or she participates
and the ability to explain these to the group;
 A little bit of leadership experience, if possible (but there is of course a first time for
everybody!)

2. NECESSARY SKILLS
These are to do with personal talents and dispositions that we all have to a smaller or larger
extent to begin with, but that can be developed. A good group leader:
 needs to be convinced of the value of the project undertaken in order to be able to
motivate the others;
 is able to structure the work of the group;
 is able to handle various interpersonal situations: passivity, aggressiveness, etc.
 is able to lay aside his or her own personal opinions in order to let the others express
theirs;
 is able to truly listen and understand the others.
It is by practising that you are able to acquire and develop these skills. Even if you're not sure
you possess all of them from the start, you have nothing to lose if you feel like trying to lead a
group. You are going the group a huge service if you help it to function well.
Does the leader need to know everything?
No, the leader does not know anything. His or her role is not to give answers, but to lead. He or
she simply needs to know enough about a specific topic in order to be able to understand what is
said by the others and relate the different statements to eachother.
DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN A LEADER AND AN EXPERT
It is really important to distinguish between a leader and an expert (or a resource person – they
both words mean the same thing). Take the example of a group creating a project concerning
family budgets:
The leader does not need to be an expert on the topic of budgets; he doesn't even need to know
as much as the other members of the group. His or her main role is to help the group to ask
questions, to find answers to these questions one way or the other and not answer them him- or
herself. However, a good enough knowledge of the issue in question is necessary in order to be
able to properly lead the group.
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What is the role of the expert in relation to the topic? It could be a member of the group, all the
members of the group together, or a guest from the outside.
Starting from the moment when a group starts dealing with a situation with which all the
members have practical experience, they are more or less experts since they have the
experience (experts by experience). Too often, we have resorted to asking the opinion of
specialists, forgetting that our own experiences enable us to think and speak.
Establishing a true self-confidence is the first step to take in order to avoid the many abstract
and irrelevant definitions of specialists; if the worker will not speak on behalf of the workers or
the farmer on behalf the farmers, who will be able to speak in their place and do their claims
justice? No one. The best experts on an issue is those who experience it in their daily lives; the
university of life is often more efficient than official universities.
In practice, and especially in small groups, the leader is often also an export on the issue that is

3. being discussed. If this is the case, he needs to make sure the group knows so that they do not
feel manipulated. In one way, this might even be better since the group will be able to find
answers to their questions straight away without having to go through a lot of different steps. On
the other hand, this might be bad since the groups risks becoming passive and completely in the
hands of the leader, like little children before their teacher. In large groups, it is usually less
difficult to distinguish between the leader or organizer of a meeting and the expert or
speaker/advisor/guest.
To summarize, we could say that the role of the leader is above all that of an organizer that
organizes the projects of the group. In order to lead well, it is by no means necessary to be an
expert on the issues that are discussed, but he or she still needs to have a basic grasp of them
in order to be able to lead the discussion.