Starting the Transition from Adult to Youth Leadership

We’ve understood what a Scout led Troop promises and are ready to get underway – so what next?

Start Listening Wht you do as an adult in Scouting is about to change drastically. From now on you are permitted a minute or two at the close of a troop meeting to share a story or to say something encouraging. For the rest of the time you are quietly observing, gathering information, seeing how the Scouts work (we’ll talk about what to do with this information later). It should go without saying that you reserve the right to step in if the rules of safety or propriety are breached, but that should be a rare occurrence.

Youth leaders will not step up so long as you are running the show, so you have to stop. Stop telling, sharing, instructing, shouting, interjecting: just stop.

Start Mentoring and Coaching Leadership development is the result of continuous coaching and mentoring. You and your youth leadership will be learning things together, collaborating, discovering, inventing, trying things out; an exciting and rewarding process.

Coaching and mentoring mostly takes place away from the action – don’t interfere with the Scouts when they are working.

Start Letting Scouts Lead If you let go a little your Scouts will lead a little, if you let go of a lot they will lead a lot, if you stop leading altogether they will do it all.

I may be a much better leader than my best Senior Patrol Leader, I my be a better instructor than any of my Scouts but this does not mean that I should do any of the leading or instructing. My real job is coaching Scouts to discover and develop their abilities to lead or instruct. This is one in a series of posts about Transitioning From Adult to Youth Leadership: Introduction What Really Matters The Patrol Leader’s Council Asking Questions