RISE Leadership Training: Yokohama International School

We are thrilled to announce that our RISE Youth Leadership Training series dedicated to international schools and educational institutions is officially in full swing!

This past May, we kicked off our highly anticipated monthly series at Yokohama International School (YIS). Marking the beginning of an exciting, long-term partnership focused on building robust student support systems, our first session brought together over 60 student service team leaders from across the school’s diverse service departments.

Passionate student leaders gathered to tackle a foundational question: What does service learning really mean to you, and what does it take to motivate your team of students in your service group?

To help students unlock how to inspire their peers, we introduced the concept of the "Mentorship Mindset" through an interactive group case study. The leaders analyzed four distinct coaching styles based on where they fell on the spectrum of standards versus support. They examined the high-standard, low-support leader who drives for results but creates an environment of fear, the low-standard, high-support leader who avoids honest feedback to keep everyone happy, and the disengaged low-standard, low-support leader. Ultimately, they discovered the "sweet spot" of the mentorship mindset: a high-standard, high-support leader who sets challenging goals because they genuinely believe in their team’s potential, while actively providing the psychological safety and hands-on support needed when things get tough.

By the end of the session, the student service team leaders left not just with a better understanding of how to manage their projects, but with a refined toolkit on how to uplift, motivate, and empower the human beings behind those projects. This is just the beginning of our journey with Yokohama International School. As this monthly series continues, we look forward to standing alongside these students, helping them build sustainable leadership systems, and watching their service learning projects thrive.