My youth leadership sometimes plays a game of Scout Leadership Tag – for some sudden reason they cannot make a meeting or event and dump their responsibility on another youth leader; tag, you’re it!
Most of the time they do this with a phone call or a quick word at school. They imagine that this is adequate – after all that’s how a game of tag works. Sometimes they just don’t show up; then we play another game called ‘talk to the Scoutmaster’. By now you should be wearing a grin of recognition, this is not an uncommon problem, right?
No policy, leadership contract or procedural writeup will help, and a good stiff talk with an angry Scoutmaster is only marginally effective. So what is the answer?
First accept that this is a typical obstacle in developing leadership – not a punishable offense. Second ask the youth leadership if they think this game of tag is acceptable. When they say yes have the guy who got dumped on explain what it felt like and what he had to do to make up for their caviler attitude; this usually works. Scouts have an acute sense of fairness, if you appeal to it they will often solve the problem for themselves.