Hearts & Minds: Governing Before Graduation: How to Sell a Teenage Leader

George Finch, the new leader of Warwickshire County Council, presides over a budget of £2bn. He is 19 years of age. Young politicians are not new. In France, Gabriel Attal, the prime minister, is 34; Sebastian Kurz became chancellor of Austria at 31. Founding father Alexander Hamilton was George Washington’s aide-de-camp at 24 and helped draft the constitution at 32. In Britain, William Pitt the Younger was prime minister aged 24. Putting aside entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who achieved extraordinary success while young and let their obvious business prowess do their talking, how do you sell the idea of someone bearing so much responsibility, when as in Finch’s case, they are fresh out of school?

Accept it will always be there. Whenever they say or do something, their relative youth will be mentioned, perhaps not directly but in the media and constantly on social media. One false step and critics will jump in and snipe. It’s to be expected; in personal interviews, it will be raised.

It is a strength, to be able to view the job, the role, from an unhindered position, not burdened by baggage. It’s one, too, to be able to connect with youth, the bugbear of a generally ageing political class and establishment. The Greta Thunberg line on inaction on climate change is cutting: ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words’. For someone like Finch it really is all about the future, for him his and his generation, and how he can endeavour to shape it.

That said, it would be a grave mistake for him to disavow history. It’s there to be absorbed, for triumphs to be replayed if possible and disasters to not be repeated. Acknowledgment of its importance is required. It is this past that defines the post he now holds. To pretend it does not exist and has no influence will not succeed.

What he is required to show is humility. He is a teenager, he realises he does not and cannot know everything but he is a willing listener, ready to learn. That way he wins respect and carries those much older folks, his colleagues he must work with and the people he now serves. The alternative is to operate in a bubble built on being 19, which leads to accusations of impetuousness and arrogance, and that will not do. 

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.