Pathway Leadership is in the business of helping teens and young adults make a difference by providing them with learning opportunities, programs and resources. Youth leadership is a distinct area of development for youth that are motivated and want to step up at school, in their extra-curricular activities, their community or the larger world.
Most companies focus on supporting leadership development in adults but Pathway Leadership is dedicated to empowering today’s youth. If we think back on our own life experiences, we notice that leadership opportunities begin when we are teenagers and this is where the most influential leadership lessons emerge. Our workshops and learning journeys will encourage youth to develop a personal leadership identity and reinforce it with participation, involvement and empowerment through skilled facilitation and experiential learning.
Pathway Leadership’s mission is simple:
Show up and be in relationship with youth and young adults and provide them with tools, education and language so they can explore and develop their leadership potential.
Ruth-Ann Shantz – Lead Collaborator
Pathway Leadership Group believes in youth and young adults. I started this business to coach, mentor, support and develop leadership opportunities with youth and young adults. I have deep roots in the common good philosophy to create wholeness which helps to define who we are. I want to form individuals of integrity who have the capacity and commitment to be transformed by their learning.
I have been involved in leadership development for a long time and I have extensive skills through 20 years of organizational, camping and church leadership experience. I have a passion for connecting with people and mentoring youth. I am a skilled facilitator and teacher who has the ability to both capture and hold people’s attention because my communication style is genuine and authentic. I am committed to having fun while exemplifying the creation of gracious space in an environment that supports learning and growth.
WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE…
- Being a mom is an inspirational experience for me and has molded and formed me. I love who my boys have become as they have matured into young adults with solid values and amazing personalities. They are super proud of me and I am super proud of them.
- Finding someone who loves you unconditionally is the greatest gift in life. My husband has been my best supporter, my greatest friend and the one who has seen me at my worst and at my best.
- I love to laugh – you know the full laugh that fills a room and makes other people laugh as well.
- Everyone should have some “marble jar” friends. Brene Brown talks about them in her various books and I am lucky to have some excellent marble jar friends in my life.
- Active learning through both formal and informal means is something that should happen throughout all of life
- You can only experience joy if you have known sadness, you may experience heart-ache if you know love, and you can only understand easy if you have experienced something difficult.
- Books are like friends who enter your life just when you need them the most.
- Things happen for a reason. That segues nicely into my next point…
- Never say never – For a variety of reasons I only lasted one year in university. I determined that I would never return to something that had been such a painful experience for me. As an adult, I embraced my vulnerability and went back to university and I flourished. I am now the proud owner of both an undergraduate diploma and an MBA diploma – never say never!!