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Leadership seminars are designed to prepare our country's high school sophomores to become effective, ethical leaders in their home, school, workplace, and community. They give the sophomore students (called ambassadors at HOBY - pronounced "hoe' - bee") hands-on practice at being a leader through participation in leadership and team building activities, icebreakers, simulations, and motivational experiences.

In one part of the seminar, panel question and answer sessions with leaders of business, industry, education, media, the arts, and the non-profit sector allows these community leaders to share their successes and inspiration on a personal level, share their leadership expertise from their respective industries, and share where they see the future of the industry heading.

Each panelist is given five minutes to address the group. HOBY panelists generally have divergent viewpoints and unique persepectives, with the purpose of teaching ambassadors how to think, not what to think - a critical point of the HOBY methodology. After all panelists have given their presentations, the floor is open for a 30-minute question and answer session, allowing the ambassadors to interact with the panelists. This gives ambassadors a chance to lead the conversation where they want it to go and explore their interests within the topic of discussion.

As part of our commitment of teaching these young people to give back to their communities, HOBY has incorporated a Leadership for Service component of the curriculum. Ambassadors complete a volunteer service project while attending the HOBY seminar and are challenged to complete a minimum of 100 hours of volunteer service annually to give back to their community.

Ambassadors have the opportunity to identify and further develop their leadership talents through several other activities designed to challenge their critical thought processes.