Developing Youth Leadership

Why is Scouting designed around youth leadership? Most Scouters think a youth led troop is the brass ring of Scouting. What exactly do we mean when we talk about youth leadership? There’s much confusion and misunderstanding of this than nearly any other aspect of Scouting. Our perspective is often narrowly focused on things that aren’t all that important. If you’ve been following this series you won’t be surprised when I say engaging youth in leadership is a very simple, direct and uncomplicated thing to describe, and it’s actually very simple to do....

Can you define Scout leadership without using the words “lead”, “leader”, or “leadership”? The Scout oath and law does a great job of defining leadership without any of those words. Look at the simple promise “to help other people at all times”. That’s where Scout leadership begins: helping other people at all times, by serving others and making things happen. Once you see the oath and law as a definition of leadership, things start to open up....

Should we ask Scouts to sign “leadership contracts”? A couple of decades ago I tried Scout contracts, it was a mistake. I guess at the time that I would teach my Scouts a thing or two and demand that that sign a Scout contract before they took on a role of responsibility. Of course they signed it and then they did not behave any differently, they missed meetings and trips just like before....

I’ve struggled to understand the role of a junior assistant Scoutmaster. It’s right there on the organizational chart, it has a (kind of fuzzy) job description, but (like many of you) I never found a way to apply this role to my complete satisfaction. When our older Scouts became junior assistant Scoutmasters they seemed to enter some kind of limbo and slowly fade away. My troop has never had a serious problem retaining older Scouts....

Telling has limited usefulness in developing youth leadership … … asking is what really gets things moving along. This week I’ll explain how to ask questions in exchange for offering advice or telling Scouts how to do things. This is a powerful tool to get them doing the kind of thinking that fosters leadership development. If you are looking for problems you’ll see problems, if you are looking for development you’ll see development, if you are just looking you’ll see both....

It is our responsibility to assure there’s a shared expectation… … and our Scouts understand them. Scout aged children are not going to interpret gentle reminders, they’d prefer to have to have things clearly spelled out. They are literalists, they don’t take hints. You can be direct without being unpleasant. There has to be continual engagement and evaluation. Positions of responsibility in Scouting, to me at least, is about working together to get things done, not about title, privilege or command structures....

If things aren’t moving along the problem may be obvious… .. like our understanding of the relationship between the program, advancement, and positions of responsibility. The Scouting program is there, ready to go, but it can’t go on it’s own can it? It’s all words in books, it does not have muscles or lungs, or a heart, or a brain, it’s just sitting there. In this podcast I’ll answer a couple of emails focused on positions of responsibility that got me thinking about carts and horses, I hope it helps!...

My son was frustrated, decided to change troops, and was elected senior patrol leader in his new troop. *The Scoutmaster is a man of good intentions but with a commanding presence. Over time he has taken to leading himself because it’s easier and less messy. The Scouts in this troop would like to have more say, and implement the patrol method as you talk about it.*Which brings me to my question....

Scouting is something Scouts do for themselves … … rather than a program of activities presented for them. This week I’ll discuss the way Scouts should be engaged in leading one another, in making decisions affecting what they do and how it is done. Our ideal responsive leadership role as a barely perceptible influence empowering young people to do things for themselves. We accomplish this in a progressive partnership: adult and youth roles are collaborative, not hierarchical....

What has a Mesoamerican Step Pyramid got to do with this? Today I want to talk about leadership, but I want to see if I can get you to come along with me and really examine what this means in Scouting. Leadership in Scouting is based on discovery. I have (what I hope is a great) analogy to share with you, and this one is a whopper! It’s a really complicated analogy, you may have to go back and listen to it again....

How do I know what frustrates a youth leader? I have been guilty of each of these ten things at one time or another. People who volunteer to work with Scouts are generally good-hearted, well-meaning folks who want to do their best to guide Scouts towards growing into useful, good hearted people themselves. But this goodwill is not enough, we have to strive to develop our skills as adult volunteers. We develop character in individual Scouts; there is no formulaic, step-by-step approach....

I am not thinking about the nature of Scouting activities… When Scouting is happening, when it’s really popping and sizzling along, Scouts are doing things that few, if any of their peers are doing. I am not thinking about the nature of their activities, that’s something we’ve discussed many times before, what I am thinking about is the amount of trust and autonomy they have in carrying out those activities. That’s something few, of any of their peers get to experience....

How do you decide who ends up in what patrol? Patrols are not about managing Scouts, they are not an artificial construct. If you look at patrols from the perspective of your Scouts there’s the only thing that’s actually important – and that’s what we’ll talk about on this podcast. The real secret is that you don’t have to make patrols, because Scouts do that themselves whether we like it or not....

Many Scouters claim; “We have a youth-led Troop,” but what does that really mean? Official literature mentions this sort of thing often, but how is do we really define “youth-led”? We’d like to think what the Scouts do and how they do it defines “youth-led”, but it doesn’t. Young people lead themselves all the time, it comes quite naturally to them. What adults do is just as important to a youth-led troop as what adults don’t do....

We tend to focus only on directive leadership roles when we are thinking about engaging our Scouts in leadership, but every Scout can (and ought to) be a leader. Here’s some thoughts you can use to encourage all of your Scouts to engage in leadership. **Leadership is much more than standing in front of the group giving directions.**There are four ways every Scout is a leader – First you lead yourself, second you follow cooperatively, third you help your fellow Scouts, and fourth you shape the directions and plans for your patrol and troop....

Like most three-year-olds my granddaughter is a expert learner – she soaks up everything around her like a sponge. There’s a new discovery every hour of the day, it’s a challenge keeping up. How do three-year-olds learn? Through a process of discovery. They get curious, they watch other people, get their hands on things; what is it for, how does it work? They watch other people do things, and try them out....

What are the basic principles behind Scouts taking on positions of responsibility in Scouting? Our procedures are based on something more than policy or practice they have to have a basis in principles, in what makes Scouting what it is. If you understand the basic principles the procedures explain themselves. When we discuss positions of responsibility for Scouts we ought to ask if most of the things that happen in the troop at the adult level done according to a job description adhering to a chain of command or do adults mostly just work together cooperatively to do what needs to be done?...

I want to encourage you to stop training youth leaders and start developing their leadership skills – two very different things. Scouts learn best experimentally, “ready, fire, aim” is an apt description of the process. Directing the archery and rifle range at our camp many years ago I learned some important lessons about how to help Scouts develop skills. Most Scouts that showed up at the range weren’t receptive to formal instruction because they had that jumpy “beginner energy”, assumptions about their own skill, and they were excited to try things out....

What does learning to ride a bike have to do with Scouting? Listen to my answer to an email question from a new Scoutmaster to find out, I answer several other questions on this podcast about records, troop size and youth leader accountability. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS LINKS IN THIS PODCAST Sponsored By ScoutmasterCG.com Backers Get The SCOUTMASTERCG APP Podcast Archive

If your perspective of developing leadership is limited to what you believe needs to happen rather than observing what is actually happening you’ll miss opportunities, Let’s imagine we’re sitting around a table with the patrol leader’s council before a troop meeting. There’s a lot of chatting and dithering around, you turn to the senior patrol leader, and he reigns the council in. They’ve decided that they’ll be brushing up on their orienteering skills, and the senior patrol leader looks at you expectantly....