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I know that this words means "Leader", but I need help thinking of a _keyword_
that helps me decipher words containing the Kanji 将.

Take this word for example 未成年. To me, individually, these Kanji means, "not
yet", "turn into" and "year". With these keywords, I can then pull the meaning
out from this Kanji by saying something like, "Well, if the YEAR has NOT YET
TURNED of you then you're probably stuck at a young age. Therefore your a
MINOR".

Here's another example using the Kanji 未来. Individually, the key words are,
"not yet" and "come". Again, my thinking will be along the lines of, "Hmm...
if something has NOT YET COME, it will take some time to get here. Therefore,
It will arrive sometime in the FUTURE".

Can you see how this makes sense? So here's where things don't make sense for
me.

As far as I know (and yes I'm pretty knew to Japanese), this 将 means LEADER.
But when I use that keyword to decipher this kanji 将来, it just doesn't make
sense. Individually these are, "leader" and "come". So I'm thinking, "Well...
it's erm... a LEADER that has to COME/arrive sometime in the FUTURE. Like a
FUTURE president maybe?

Somehow this just doesn't gel for me. Need help. So what keywords should I be
using for 将 that will help me decipher other words?
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meaning
What does 将 mean?
「将」, as a kanji (and not as a word in Japanese), can mean "will" and "shall".

So, if you look at 「将来」 as "will come" or "shall come", it actually is quite
logical that it means "future".

See:
[http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=%E5%B0%86](http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=%E5%B0%86)

(The kanji you see on that page is the Chinese version of「将」.)
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While I completely agree with l'électeur's answer, I wanted to give a related
opinion on this matter.

Even though the Kanji meaning works out in the case, studying Japanese I've
found certain cases where it is hard to match a Kanji's (common) meaning with
the overall meaning of compound. For example the word 流石, whose meaning
doesn't seem to relate very well to its constituent parts (even if you can
provide a counter example to this compound, I think it's hard to disagree that
this can occur).

I think it's great to try and learn each Kanji's individual meaning and
associate that with the compound meanings to a certain extent. However,
eventually you will encounter words that you just have to learn "as is", and
accept there are exceptions or usages of Kanji that are no longer in common
use.

In this specific case, I think 将's most common meaning is "leader", though as
others pointed out there are other meanings. But I am not sure how common
those are, or if it is worth trying to memorize all possible meanings for each
Kanji.

If nothing else, learning various meanings of Kanji can be fun and an
interesting trip through history (:
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See the [Wiktionary Entry for
將](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%87#Chinese) ( _Shinjitai_ : 将):

> A conflation of two roots: “to take; to hold” and “will; be going to; near”.

The reason why it's hard to connect the meanings of「将」in the question is
because it's being used to represent two different root words.

* * *

**Character structure**

「將」is comprised of a _hand_ 「寸」 _taking/holding_ a _piece of meat_ 「肉・⺼」and a
phonetic「爿{しょう}」.

> 「爿{しょう}」depicts a _resting table_ , and was the original form of「床{しょう}」(
> _bed_ ).

**Meaning 1: _Leader_ , [Sino-Tibetan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-
Tibetan_languages) root**

「將」originally referred to a word meaning _take/hold > to hold power > leader_
, cf.「將軍」( _Shinjitai_ :「将軍{しょうぐん}」).

**Meaning 2: _Will/shall_ ,
[Austroasiatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austroasiatic_languages) root**

「將」is a phonetic loan for this meaning, which is preserved in Chinese
loanwords like「將來」( _Shinjitai_ :「将来{しょうらい}」).
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