Core Strategy

In March of this year, the Girl Scout Research Institute released an original study, Change It Up! What Girls Say About Redefining Leadership. The study was based on research conducted with almost 4,000 girls and boys around the country.

Some important findings of the study are as follows:

• Girls do not identify with the command-and-control definition of leadership prevalent in our culture today. Instead, girls embrace a leadership style that focuses on ethics, personal principles, and social change values.
• Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents said they want to be a leader who "stands up for their beliefs and values," and 59 percent said they want to be a leader "who tries to change the world for the better." Girls are clearly telling us that we need to "change it up" in how we define and think about leadership. Thirty-nine percent of girls say they want to be leaders. Despite this, girls face barriers that include a lack of self-confidence in their own skill set and competencies, stress, fear of speaking in front of others, peer pressure, and stereotypes about what it means to be a girl in today's society.
• The desire for leadership is higher among African American (53 percent), Hispanic (50 percent) and Asian American (59 percent) girls compared to Caucasian girls (34 percent).
• Girls' mothers are their main source of support in terms of leadership.
• Girls feel that places for them to develop their leadership skills are scarce.
• Girls feel that the power to change things or teach/help others in many environments is the kind of leadership most appealing to them.

Thanks to a successful collaboration between GSUSA and Girl Scout councils nationwide, the media launch of Change It Up! continues to be a huge success both locally and nationally. A conservative estimate, based on circulation figures and Nielsen ratings, is that approximately 40 million people have been exposed to the leadership messaging from the study, helping to position Girl Scouts as the leading expert on girls and leadership development.

The study's findings have been highlighted in many prominent national and local print, Web, radio, and TV outlets, including the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Harvard Business Online, National Public Radio, MSNBC, and Fox Business News. The story also posted to United Press International's wire and was covered and translated into Chinese by Voice of America. The GSRI story in the Washington Post turned out to be the fifth most-read article of the day (March 26, 2008).

For more information on the study, please visit the research publications section of the Web site.