Student leaders play a vital role in shaping school culture, fostering engagement, and creating meaningful change in their communities. But leadership isn’t just about holding a title—it’s about taking action, setting an example, and inspiring others. As an educator working with student organizations, you have the opportunity to guide and mentor young leaders, helping them develop the confidence and skills needed to make a real impact. 

If we want our students to be better citizens and stronger leaders in the world, we have to elevate student voice and create student-led environments. Let CoolSpeaker Lamarr Womble provide you with five key ways you can elevate student leaders and student voice in your school

1. Keep Your Word

Your staff and students need to believe that you will do what you say you will do. You build trust by following through on your commitments, going through the battles with your staff and students, and being on their side. 

You build trust by holding everyone to the standard of excellence and high expectations – especially your student leaders. Believe in them when they don’t believe in themselves. Have the hard conversation, they’ll appreciate it after the fact.

When people trust you, they know that you want the best for them, that you’ll fight for them, and that you’re willing to understand their perspective. Then they will fight for you. This is how you set up an environment where your students and staff believe anything is possible

2. Put Student Leaders in Positions that show their voice matters.

I’ve been working with the Christina School District in Delaware this year, helping the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Committee develop a student leader and district-partnered series. The primary superintendent liaison for the group listens to what they want, sends district leaders to hear their concerns, and offers solutions to their concerns; the superintendent even occasionally attends the meetings.

All students need to be in situations where their voice is truly being listened to, or at least they can listen for transparency’s sake. Spaces like these can go beyond student leaders, they can range from students doing restorative justice or attending administrative leadership meetings.   

3. Leadership Starts with Opportunity

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”

While being a school culture and SEL leader, I consulted with a school that was excellent at making students feel loved, like they belonged as a part of the culture and family!

However, my evaluation of this school’s culture showed they weren’t great at letting students lead or contribute in that culture.

Things were planned for students, not with them – they participated, but they didn’t plan and participate. This became my primary focus: make sure students created things across all cohorts in the school that led to a greater collective impact on the culture and students seeing their ideas become reality. 

Most importantly, for student leaders, a leadership skill can be learned, and at minimum, the frame of reference to say in the future, I’ve done this before matters!

4. Find your Sophomores, get them activated! 

Almost all of the most impactful student leaders I’ve worked with were under the radar or not the top academic students – they were sophomores. Often overlooked, they were in a kind of “no man’s land,” searching for a team, friends, and a place to belong.

Being a sophomore is the magic. It gives them two solid years to learn, create, and execute with a tad more maturity than a freshman and more time on their hands than seniors. 

5. Let them fail, take your ego out of it!

This is very difficult to do in theory and practice. School administrators and teachers have to create low-stakes environments where student leaders can ideate, plan, and execute things, so that if it doesn’t go well, it won’t make the advisor look irresponsible as the person helping them coordinate. This person should also be willing to know this may not go well. Leadership also needs to give grace for students’ lack of execution early on. 

Here’s your chance to evaluate your school and your leadership. School leaders are cultivating an environment where students feel empowered to make decisions and have higher levels of self-confidence. Student leaders build hard skills and learn from failures. Advisors can eventually operate as consultants, not CEOs. Practicing this can lead to benefits for advisors, students, and school leaders once the stakes are higher.

How many of these items are happening at your school?  Three or more, you’re on your way. Two or fewer, we’ve got some work to do!

When student leaders are empowered with the right mindset and tools, they can transform their schools, strengthen their communities, and inspire their peers. By fostering leadership skills and encouraging action, educators can help students grow into confident, capable leaders. Bring Lamarr Womble to your school for engaging keynotes and workshops that equip all students with the strategies, confidence, and motivation to lead with impact. 

Connect with CoolSpeak today to book a session and take your student leadership program to the next level!