Developing & Training Youth Leaders

Scouter 573 asks: What can I do to help an uncertain senior patrol leader who thinks he got chosen for something other than his leadership abilities? Most of my senior patrol leader’s (twenty five or so and counting) have had at least a minor crisis of self confidence.

Information educates the mind, experience develops skill.

This is the eighth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how.

Like most three-year-olds my granddaughter is a expert learner – she soaks up everything around her like a sponge.

I’ve struggled to understand the role of a junior assistant Scoutmaster.

Carrying backpacks for the first time, Scouts leave the familiar comforts of home and strike out on the trail.

“I cannot teach anybody anything.

This first of twelve installments is a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how.

Imagine you are 13 and have just been elected patrol leader.

The picture that forms in my mind when I look at most attempts at leadership training is watching someone try to get a prize out of one of those claw machines.

The success of any high adventure program is more about the people you go with than the place you go .

If we are to focus on the success of our Scouts what evidence do we have that they have achieved success? There are a few simple questions in the introduction to the Scout Handbook that serve as excellent benchmarks for success; Are you ready to become an expert hiker and camper, to explore the natural world, and to meet challenges with good judgment and skill? Are you eager to make the most of yourself and succeed in the best ways possible? Do you want to become a leader and do all you can for your family, your neighborhood, and America? .

Summer camps all over the country opened over the last couple of weeks.

Scouting shares that paradoxical combination of simplicity and complexity found in a round of golf or a game of baseball.

The most “clever” Scoutmaster I ever heard of would routinely bring his patrol leaders in to a room with a number of chairs strewn about in random fashion and tell them to observe the area for several minutes.

My career as a amateur and, very occasionally, professional actor has demonstrated that people raise their performance level astronomically when they have a real audience.

Green Bar Bill Hillcourt’s oft repeated encouragement to “Train em’ trust em’ and let them lead” remains the simple formula for building and maintaining confidence in youth leadership.

I want to encourage you to stop training youth leaders and start developing their leadership skills – two very different things.

I taught my step-son to drive from the passenger seat of a beat-up, old, standard transmission Honda Civic.

This is the sixth of twelve installments in a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how.

This second of twelve installments is a story that follows a new Scoutmaster, Chuck Grant, attempting to use the patrol method in a troop that has forgotten how.

Dave Wortendyke, ASM of Troop 78 in Boulder, Colorado – Longs Peak Council — has to say about the value of “Thorns and Roses,” and how to do it… (from Ask Andy ) “While many Scout Troops/Venture Groups either attend National High Adventure Bases, or conduct their own long-term adventures, and almost all Scouts have a fantastic time on the trips, once in a while a dark cloud can occur to spoil the trip for one or more of the participants.

Conduct youth leader training for ALL the boys, not just the “leaders”, have them work through the experience as patrols, don’t create “training patrols”.

Do you know why the Smoky Mountains have so many species of salamanders? I didn’t.

On one of the first camping trips I went to, my Troop had the unpleasant duty of cleaning the latrine.

If a Scouter concentrates on what Scouts aren’t doing it tends to blind them to what they are doing.

Gather wood, prepare tinder, kindling and fuel.

During a visit from a Webelos Den at our last Troop meeting one of my Scouts was available to speak with the parents of the visiting boys.

These leadership questions were part of our annual leadership challenge event this past weekend.

In a post titled The Patrol Leader’s Council and Planning I laid out the basis of structure, content, planning and preparation.

Mistakes are always made.

Bruce Tuckman first offered a theory of group development in the mid 1960′s.

The current question at Scouting Magazine’s Front Line Stuff Getting Cub Scouts to be Serious I am a den chief, and my father is a den leader.

What are the most promising approaches for youth leader development? In the first installment in this series we discussed some key concepts about the relationship between Scouts and leadership positions and the way they develop as leaders.

In the first installment in this series I asserted that youth leaders develop when they are doing, not watching.

Scout youth leader training is important, we do a lot of training.

Here’s my “catechism” for youth leaders: What is your goal? To Lead, Train, and Inspire Scouts to become First Class.

What follows is a first look at one part of a youth leadership training-mentoring program I have been working on.

In my experience there are five basic phases in the process of leadership development.

Willy Volk succinctly describes how he applies his experience in the Peace Corps to his work.

I advocate using guided discovery (asking questions) to help youth leadership find their way.

There’s nothing wrong with having a plan But missions are better.

You may be pulling in different directions if they don’t.

Walter Underwood 1 Comment EDITORS NOTE – Here’s a something that should be in our minds every time we interact with our Scouts.

Professor Kingsfield, the student’s nemesis, has a reputation for a brilliant, dispassionate relentlessness.

Leadership is not all about ticking things off the ‘to do’ list – or even having the list in the first place.

Mentoring often goes on unnoticed in Scouting because it is so integral to the process.

Here’s an interesting piece from the Outdoor Ed Community blog; Teaching is listening, learning is talking.

A predictable frustration for Scoutmasters is the Scout who takes on a leadership position and doesn’t meet expectations.

My youth leadership sometimes plays a game of 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.

The skill team approach lends itself to the dual goals of instructing Scouts and training instructors.

Every so often we dedicate one Troop meeting to an Inter-Patrol Scoutmaster’s Challenge; an evening of skill, spirit and leadership competition.

Methods If adults are doing all the instruction they are denying their Scouts the opportunity to develop some important skills.

On joining a troop some scouts will wait for someone to come to them and ask to sign off their advancement achievements.

Most Councils have a JLT (Junior Leader Training) course once or twice a year.