Leadership Principles

Our perception of learning shapes the way we instruct and lead. Here are four common models of learning and leadership: Learning Model – EMPTY VESSEL – BLANK STATE Students are empty vessels that are filled by learning new things. Additive learning assumes uniform voids are filled by uniform chunks of learning. Leading Method – PASSIVE STUDENT – ACTIVE TEACHER Classic classroom techniques of presenting blocks of material (lectures, repetition, etc.) with students in a passive role and teachers as presenters....

Outdoor leadership is different. Good administrative skills go just so far when leading a group in an extended outdoor experience. What works at a Troop meeting or in the boardroom does not always translate well on a week-long backpacking or canoeing trip. Scouting offers great administrative training and valuable supplemental training in outdoor skills and safety. What we don’t have is a comprehensive training course in the group dynamics of long-term outdoor trips....

Over time, processes that seek to decrease entropy and create order are valued, but improving them gets more difficult as well. If you’re seeking to make the organized more organized, it’s a tough row to hoe. Far easier and more productive to create productive chaos, to interrupt, re-create, produce, invent and redefine. Seth Godin Most of our work as Scoutmasters is like hiking a trail; start here and end up there....

In the Birch Bark Roll (Link to PDF version) first published in 1902 Earnest Thompson-Seton describes camp leadership. (Many of his ideas were adapted by Baden-Powell in his Scouting for Boys.) When two or three young people camp out, they can live as a sort of family, especially if a grown-up be with them, but when a dozen or more go, it is necessary to organize. There are four possible forms of government:...

Leadership is the keynote to success– but leadership is difficult to define, and leaders are difficult to find. I have frequently stated that “any ass can be a commander, and a trained man may often make an instructor; but a leader is more like the poet– born, not manufactured. Baden-Powell from B.P.’s Outlook B.P. speaks of three different sorts of people the commander, the instructor and the leader. An echo of the leaders described in this well known saying;...

Read this at Seth Godin’s blog Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat. Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably. Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it. To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel....

Here’s five ways to Succeed as a Scouter Trust the Program Rely on 100 years of proven results Embrace changes when they are announced – stay current No short-cuts When you make things easier for adults you usually diminish the experience for Scouts Conduct activities that are age appropriate Understand how the Scouting program responds to the age group you are working with. Foster a sense of growing personal responsibility and initiative....

Almost all of us have either had the personal experience of working with someone who displayed bad apple behaviors … When this process starts to unfold at work, it consumes inordinate amounts of time, psychological resources, and emotional energy. … such circumstances underlie many people’s reluctance to fully commit to teams… they offend us, reduce our enthusiasm, change our mood and may ultimately lead us to personally de-identify or leave the group, with a high likelihood that the group itself will perform poorly, fail, or disband....

The spectacular Frontline documentary on PBS by David Breashears on the 1996 Everest tragedy includes interviews with expedition members and interactive maps of the mountain and the accident. The documentary is a fantastic case study in risk management, judgment and decision making and is highly recommended as a Scouter training tool. On 10–11 May 1996 eight people caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making for the deadliest day and year prior to the 16 fatalities of the 2014 avalanche and the 18 deaths resulting from avalanches caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake....

Part of learning is knowing we don’t know. Psychology’s four stages of competence describe this process: Unconscious Incompetence Neither understanding or knowing how to do something, nor recognizing the deficit or a desire to address it. Conscious Incompetence Does not understand or know how to do something, recognizes the deficit, without yet addressing it Conscious Competence Able to demonstrate the skill or knowledge with consciousness concentration. 4.Unconscious Competence So well practiced the skill or knowledge becomes “second nature”....

We do all we can to help new Scouts transitioning from Webelos – let’s not forget that Webelos den leaders stepping into new roles will need some help too. Thirty-plus years ago I was a Webelos Den Leader for eighteen (!) Webelos. I was recruited to be a Scoutmaster a year later, but it was a while before I stopped being a Webelos den leader and started being a Scoutmaster....

We learn best through action and discovery, not listening. Training is doing things in real time in real situations. Leadership training is like a claw machine – a clumsy remote control experiment aimed at catching a prize worth less than the quarters required to win. Training removed from the situation where the skills will be applied is about as effective as the controls on the claw machine. Most training tends to favor abstract explanations and remote analysis over action....