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Born in the late 1980s or early 1990s, emerging leaders live in a different world than the one I grew up in and face challenges I never had to address.

Today’s young people live in a world marked by more accelerated change than at any other moment in human history. Many of them will grow up to work in jobs that have not yet been invented, using technology we cannot yet imagine. The list of acceptable options for their lifestyle choices, family models, education, religious expressions and moral practices is more expansive than it has ever been before. Their social, cultural and belief landscape is shifting sand.

We often speak as if young people have created the world in which they live. But the truth is, they have inherited it. Pluralism, relativism, consumerism, technological innovation, postmodernism—this is the only world they have ever known. As one of my mentors, Don Posterski, says, they have inherited in the micro what the older generation of adults have put in place in the macro.

These emerging leaders are the group of people I work with in my role as president and CEO of Muskoka Woods. The decade between age 16 and 26 can be a period of incredible leadership formation. Over the years, I have crossed paths with thousands of young people in this stage, and I have had the privilege of giving mentoring, coaching and spiritual direction to many. Along the way, I have seen that the nature of the world they live in creates particular strengths and challenges for them as leaders. In such a time as this, how do we develop emerging leaders?

This book aims to deepen understanding about where emerging leaders are at and what kind of world they live in. It aims to inspire and equip young people—and the coaches, mentors and sages that accompany them—to look at the world and say “It doesn’t have to be this way” and do something about it.