Leadership Development

Scout Equals Leader

Why, you may ask, is leadership development a method of Scouting? On the surface it doesn't seem to have anything to do with citizenship, character, or fitness. Then I have to ask why, in the early days of WWII, were former Boy Scouts often given leadership responsibilities in the various military boot camps? Why were former Scouts often singled out, finding themselves on the fast track through the ranks - enlisted or commissioned? The answer is simple, most commanders knew they could count on these former Boy Scouts to get the job done even while learning the job themselves.

My own experience in the military tends to support that. Now, I wasn't called upon to lead my company, or even my section, but I was called upon often to assist. Most often I was asked to help a fellow recruit learn to tie knots or follow instructions.

Just the simple act of being a Scout is an act of leadership development. Think about it, the basic unit of Scouting is the patrol. Within the patrol Scouts learn to do things on their own, under leaders they have chosen themselves. As they rise through the ranks, they may be called upon to take on that challenge themselves and everything they've learned about being in a patrol prepares them for that moment.

Setting The Example

Scouting does not count leadership development as a method simply because it helps keep the program running though. Think about the leadership skills we teach our Scouts. They are some pretty good skills to have even if you're not a leader: communicating, knowing and using resources, understanding the characteristics and needs of the group, representing the group, setting the example, planning, controlling the group, evaluating, counseling, sharing leadership, effective teaching. All of these things are quite useful even if you're not the leader.

Very often, though, we forget to not only teach these skills to our Scouts, but we fail to use them ourselves, or we fail to encourage them in others. It's strange, but one of the biggest lessons of leadership development concerns setting the example. That is the one skill that neither takes practice, nor even skill to use. The example is set whether the leaders are trying or not.

So, if you don't teach your Scouts the leadership skills, or use them yourself, they won't learn them and use them. If you don't plan things, they won't plan things - and nothing you say to them about planning, or no matter how hard you try to get them to learn how to plan, will make any difference.

Keyword: Development

To develop leadership in Scouting, we not only must provide the skill knowledge, and the example to follow, we also must provide them with knowledge of the job. It's not enough to teach them how to be a leader, or show them how to be a leader. They must be given a chance to do it for themselves. We must make it clear to them what the expectations are; what responsibilities they have. It does no good to let a Scout take on the position of Senior Patrol Leader with no idea what the job entails, or what you expect him to do. Development means constantly guiding, evaluating, and reviewing. Sure, even armed with knowledge of the expectations and parameters of the job, the Scout can still fail. Without that knowledge, however, it is more likely that he will fail.

As I discussed elsewhere, failure is not a bad thing, but it can be if the individual has no way to succeed. To learn from failure, we have to have the capability of succeeding and not succeeding. If you have no chance to succeed, all the evaluation, reflection, and reviewing will lead you to that conclusion.

Ultimately, the youth leaders in Scouting look to us for guidance on what to do and how to do it. If we don't "train 'em, trust 'em, and let 'em lead" they won't. It's that simple. Notice, though, that the first part of that quote is to train them. Strong youth leaders are what keep Scouting going through thick and thin.