Inspirational motivation in peer-based, adult-supervised youth contexts: a model for social change

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a new conceptual model – The Inspirational Motivation Model – for driving social change among youth. Design/methodology/approach Through literature review and related analysis, this paper advances two propositions that explain how youth exercise inspirational motivation, a dimension of transformational leadership. Findings The core contributions of this paper are propositions suggesting that youth leaders' inspirational motivation fosters shared vision development and persuasive communication to facilitate social change in peer-based, adult-supervised youth settings. Practical implications We recommend that leadership educators utilize the proposed model when teaching transformational leadership to college students, particularly undergraduates. Moreover, we urge researchers to empirically test the propositions of our model, as well as other dimensions of transformational leadership. Originality/value Transformational leadership is often conceptualized in terms of a clear leader–follower hierarchy characteristic of adult organizational settings, which may limit its applicability in youth contexts. To enhance the relevance of transformational leadership (TL) theory in youth settings and fill a gap in the literature, this paper explains how inspirational motivation – a key dimension of TL – can be expressed by youth leaders to facilitate social change in peer-based, adult-supervised contexts.