Inner Leadership for Youth

Who dares to create a "cancer package" for young people's education?

The cancer care pathways did not require new medication. They required a minister who decided that waiting time was part of the illness. The education sector is still waiting for its own.

By Kirsten Stendevad, leadership development specialist and author

Twenty years ago, a cancer diagnosis in Denmark meant joining a queue. You waited for one doctor, then the next, and the two rarely knew what the other was doing. Meanwhile, the disease progressed. Since the 1970s, Danish patients had experienced poorer survival rates than those in neighboring countries; for bowel cancer, Denmark ranked last in the Nordic region for half a century.

In October 2007, the government and Danish Regions reached an agreement: cancer was to be treated as an acute illness. By the end of 2008, every type of cancer was to have a standardized care pathway featuring fixed timelines, a dedicated coordinator, and quarterly monitoring. Today, there are 28 such cancer pathways.

What is remarkable is how little "rocket science" was involved. An evaluation by VIVE concluded that, until then, hospital management teams had neither the capacity nor the priority to create rapid, cross-disciplinary care pathways. It took political intervention to achieve what the professionals could have done themselves.

It worked. Figures from the Danish Cancer Registry show that between 2010 and 2024, five-year survival rates rose from 64% to 74% for women and from 61% to 71% for men. Regarding bowel cancer, Denmark turned a half-century of ranking last into achieving the highest survival rate in the Nordic region. While these pathways are currently under pressure, credit is due to the ministers who established them.

Hence my question: which minister will do the same for the education sector?

The queue is already there.

The National Health Profile 2025 shows that 52% of young women score high on the stress scale, compared to around 30% in 2010. One in three young women and one in five young men aged 16 to 24 report poor mental health. A study by the Council for Youth Well-being found that 28% of 15-to-30-year-olds have experienced stress symptoms severe enough to prompt a doctor's visit or sick leave.

We treat this as a well-being issue that can be remedied with campaigns and guidance sessions. Much like with cancer: skilled professionals, good intentions, but no actual treatment pathway.

At the same time, the content of educational programs is becoming obsolete at an exponential rate. The World Economic Forum’s *Future of Jobs Report 2025* estimates that 39% of workers' core skills will have changed or become obsolete by 2030. And the skills employers themselves rank highest are analytical thinking, resilience, adaptability, leadership, curiosity, and self-awareness.

These are not academic subjects; they are capacities. And that is precisely what no curriculum teaches directly. The most recent major education reform focused on study duration and finances, not on the skills young people need to possess afterwards.

A package for inner leadership

I propose a structured program for inner leadership modeled on the logic of the cancer care pathway: defined content, guaranteed timelines, and national monitoring.

The content is not "soft." It is the ability to think clearly under pressure. The ability to distinguish between one’s own direction and others' expectations. And agency: creating something that did not exist before, rather than merely reacting to what already is.

That last point is the crux of the matter regarding artificial intelligence. An AI generates answers faster than any human. It cannot determine which questions are worth asking, nor can it bear responsibility for the consequences. A young person who has learned only to provide correct answers competes with the machine; one who has learned to set a direction complements it.

It can be trained

For this very reason, a few years ago I introduced two additional elements into my future leadership training programs. The first is ten minutes of daily brain training that strengthens memory, focus, and decision-making ability, while counteracting the fragmentation of attention caused by a constant stream of notifications. At the same time, the training boosts neuroplasticity, the ability to learn and unlearn, which Alvin Toffler identified as early as 1970 as the most important skill of the 21st century.

The second element is S-EMDR, a structured application of the method recommended by the WHO and NICE as the first-line treatment for post-traumatic stress and used by the military. It neutralizes sensitive emotional triggers, enabling one to respond to a situation rather than reacting on autopilot.

These methods were developed over 25 years by a British company and are used in several English schools. The provider’s own data shows over 50,000 participants across 87 countries, many of whom are neurodivergent. While there has been no independent evaluation in a Danish context, that is precisely my point: why aren’t we testing it?

An obvious objection arises: is the education system now expected to take over responsibilities that families ought to teach young people? That was precisely the objection raised against the "cancer care pathways". In that case, the response was that while clinical expertise was sound, the necessary coordination was lacking. The same applies here.

Specifically: a mandatory program across all upper-secondary and higher-education institutions. A guaranteed time limit for how long a young person must wait for genuine help when experiencing mental distress. And the quarterly publication of whether these deadlines are being met. What gets measured gets done.

The cancer care pathways did not require a research breakthrough. They demanded a decision stating that the waiting period was part of the illness—and a name attached to that decision.

We are dealing with a generation that has been measured on speed, efficiency, and accuracy, precisely as machines became faster, more efficient, and more accurate than they are. They need to learn something else, and they need to learn it now, while their capacity is still easily shaped.

In ten years, someone will write that it was obvious. The only question is whose name will appear beneath the decision.