Eagledad

Leadership style used to be instructed as proper application to the situation. However, I've observed in the last 30 or so years certain leadership styles being pushed for most, if not all, situations. The change was certainly noticeable in the 21st Century Wood Badge. But, it's not just scouts, I've seen the trend in business as well. It can be a problem in a patrol method program because humans and events require different styles of leadership to maintain positive momentum of a team. A dictatorship style isn't required very often to motivate a team, but if you want to have a laugh, observe the adults of troops breaking camp at your next camporee or summer camp to notice the sudden shift into a dictator style leadership. We often talk about a Servant Style Leadership on this forum, and I think most of us know what we are talking about. But in truth, "Taking care of your scouts" requires creativity and adjusting styles of leadership because people's demeanor changes from one day to the next. Motivating multiple personalities toward a common goal requires multiple styles of leadership. Qwazse mentioned high adventure in his post; I'm not sure there is a better arena in the scouting program to watch leadership performance than high adventures treks because the physical requirements for the environment are so exhausting that it pulls most of the crews emotions to their extremes. Nothing like getting up in hard rain to eat a cold eat breakfast and break camp for an 18 mile hike with a 3000 foot grade. I learned to pick my tent by the ease and ability to set it up and break it down in hard rain. Knowing the stress of back county crew treks, I spent a lot of time preparing adults for the emotional roller coaster they were getting submerged in with a crew of teenagers who were supposed to be the crew leaders. We asked one scouter to leave the program after he lost his temper and acted aggressive toward a scout during a Philmont trek. I can assure you that 95% of the members of that crew dearly wanted the leader to use the dictator style leadership in that moment. I don't think there is a better place than the patrol for teaching young adults of when and how to apply different styles of leadership. But, I also feel the BSA is getting away from encouraging that growth and moving toward to what qwazse calls the interpersonal leadership. And, I think the adults are compensating for the trend by not letting youth leaders get into situations where they practice a lot leadership decisions. So, I'm not sure it matters much anymore. Barry

Yes, I understand. However, your comments are just as judgmental and intolerable. Review the Oath and Law. God is very much part of the values of the program. Religious principles are core of how many people live their day and judge the behavior of others in their community. People just have different standards of judgment. The BSA has a broad spectrum of how adults apply judgement on their scouts. Your opinion of religious people's judgments is obviously not, well not like many of ours. But remember, adults IN ALL TROOPS are the sources of the values they use to judge their scouts in living the Oath and Law. I am quite sure there are behaviors you don't tolerate from your scouts that aren't a problem for me. Barry

Well, I've been there, so I understand the conflict of integrity. Saying that, I can't help but feel your comment is just as judgmental. Barry

We humans tend to turn off our when we scolded. Pushback to Patrol Method is generally the result of not understanding the inherent value of giving responsibility to to the Patrol Leader. Spend the time on the inherent value (positive), then you won’t have to spend much time on the pushback (negative). Barry

Very interesting. I will have to look at the draft, but it sounds pretty good. Our council found the main problem with junior leadership training was the disconnect of what the Scouts learn and pushing the Scoutmasters encouraging them to use they learned. The main problem is the adults simply don’t know or understand what the Scouts are learning, or why. We had some success by requiring our participants’ SMs at end a 3 hour talk on Patrol Method, then they spent another hour discussing the the ticket items their Scouts created, and how they would support their scout in implementing the Scouts ideas. I believe your GB Experience could do something like that. It’s an opportunity to discuss the process of Patrol method or boy run, the objective goals of the process, and the roles of each party in the process. Giving them a common vision turns them into a team with each member understanding their roles. The teams will need some kind of handbooks for guidance when they run into conflicts after they attend your course. You could make your own handbooks or Guides of course, but consider including the SPL and PL Handbooks because they are easy to access long after LaCaster has moved on. If you are near Oklahoma, I would love to drive over an observe. I won’t say a word, I promise.😬 Barry

I’ve missed something somewhere, were the board members unit leaders or district leaders? And what is a district rep? Sounds like someone with the clout to take names and kick.....knee caps. Barry

National, and generally Council, have Zero, nada, none, desire to fail a scout on the EBOR. Unless there is clear convincing argument to show the scout hasn't completed all the requirements, they won't mess with it. That two out of three members don't agree proves there is not a clear convincing argument. I also agree that the SM should ask the EBOR member be removed until they are trained to the proper interpretations of their responsibilities. It might help carry some weight for the committee chairs looking for reason. I have done this myself. Barry

I have never heard of a scout loosing an appeal. Barry

So you are doing some backpacking. Cool! Call some packs and ask to visit their Webelos dens to show off pictures of their adventures and bring their gear to show off. Boys (not sure about girls) like gadgets. Best way to get boys excited about adventure is to listen to boys talking about adventure. We have in the past taken dutch oven and made cobbler. Cobbler is fun because it so easy to make in front over everyone. But if time is an issue, you can start cooking before the Web's show up. Or ask a den or two to meet your scouts at the park where they will talk about their troop (adventures) and roast marshmellos. Set up a tent with the packs sitting against a tree. Make a schedule for the next six months that any boy this age would want to do, fishing, mountain biking, hiking, shooting sports, canoeing, and repelling. That sounds like something I would want to try. Find fun ways to get the Webelos to visit your troop. Barry

There is often a crew at Philmont who do their whole trip in full dress uniforms. Some of them also sing and do cheers along their route. The ones I see are usually older scouts. They make it look easy, which I guess is the point. Very impressive to watch. Barry

Very cool. Ya can't be the campaign hats, but I also like the garrison hats that we wore back in the 60s. I wore my dads garrison hat that he wore in the early 40s. Glad to see the long stockings, the smartwool version are more practical for backwoods. Seems old styles come back, but I hope to never see the short shorts of the 80s. Yeeee! Barry

"Uniform" is one of the Eight Methods and has a purpose toward developing scout growth. Some adults take that more to heart than others, and use it differently than others. The objective to the "Patrol Method" method is enabling the scouts to think independently while working together as a team. That can be a very challenging expectation of the scouts. For me, the "Uniform" method is a positive part of helping scouts grow in making independent decisions for their outward actions toward the members of their patrol. Interestingly, I find the more troops are boy run, the less they look unified in uniform. Actually that un-uniformity shows the complexity of giving scouts the independence to make wrong decisions. It's not that the troop doesn't have expectations for uniform, but in each scout's life, they go through phases of vanity vs. character integrity. Scouts aren't always feeling uniform with their patrol mates. We are patient and they do grow. Barry

This debate was going 45 years ago. Same goes with the First Class cooking requirements. I don't think it's a power debate so much as program quality control. Once everyone gets an understanding of the long term objectives, most folks want to do what is best for the scouts. Barry

Nope, you are right. Everyone is wearing what they need for a week in the wilderness of sun, rain, heat and cold. Well, not so much cold. There are two patrols of scouts there because the crew was only organized for that trip. And of the two patrols, I can't say they always wear their hats uniformly. Barry

Adults set the tone for how they want scouts to behave. You don’t want them to wear hats, most will abide in your influence. Ok, we all do it one way or another, But don’t blame the scouts for the tone you are setting. Barry

Program existence requires recruiting at the early (earliest) ages. The Tiger program was created to complete against Campfiress new program change to recruit first graders. The new BSA (or whatever) membership policy is threatening the existence of GSUSA. Barry

More something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Issue-Military-USMC-Boonie/dp/B071HNS8F5 We purchased them at the Army Surplus stores. They must have had at least a dozen colors styles back then. This is my older son's Boundary Waters Crew in 1996. Notice the variety of booneys. The three in front were patrol hats. The old codger in the back and on the left had skin cancer, so he wore his bigger booney. That one was not military grade and wore out after many adventures through the years. Barry

I think the key word here is "uniform". So long as everyone is wearing the selected hat and it is in good taste with the outdoor scouting program, you won't have too much problem. Our patrols picked their hats, but I have seen PLCs (or adults) pick out the hat for the troop as well. I saw one large troop that wore campaign hats and they look very sharp. The resource for campaign hats are surplus stores that have access to drill sergeant hats. But be warned, scouts will tend to only wear comfortable hats that are comfortable in the woods. Campaign, and even baseball caps, don't do as well there. We especially like the military booney hats. Booney hats come in several colors and como styles. They vent for the heat, keep rain off the head, sun off the ears and have a strap for the windy days. They are indestructible and can handle many years of outdoors weather and are easy to stuff in a pack. Mine and my sons are still going strong 25 years later. Scoutmasters end up being the lost and found of the troop. I acquired more pocketknives and Scout Handbooks than a jar of jelly beans. I also has my fair share of baseball style BSA hats. Whatever the scouts' pick, it needs to be boy proof or cheap. Barry Barry

Just so long as they get to call the adults the Old-Goats. Barry

My hats off to anyone watching lawyers talk about law stuff. I'll wait for the Cliff notes. Barry

You encourage it by starting with someone with the vision. Either that person develops the training committee, or recruits someone to develop the training committee to the vision. It has to start with the vision. Barry

When the new Scoutmaster Fundamentals came out in 2000, all the district training chairs (and anyone willing) were asked to participate in the short 9 hour course presented by Council for evaluation. I chose to pass.😎The evaluations were that it was way too long and too boring. Ok, I knew the presenter. He once bragged about putting a colony of ants to sleep reading “The Night Before Christmas”. So I was skeptical on the boring part. But 9 hours of anything was not going to inspire busy adults to participate. Our district approached the course by dividing the syllabus up into 3 parts over a Friday night and Saturday morning. We used 3 presenters who were experienced Scoutmasters and professional college level teachers. Well, 2 teachers and a colorful engineer. Then we brought lots of food and drinks and took lots of breaks. We broke up the horrible PowerPoint slides with a few pictures of our own experiences. We basically turned the course into as much of a campfire telling stories as we could. The reputation of the course carried far enough that scouters from other districts and councils participated. Barry

I understand your point. A sense of belonging is personal and has to be developed. Oh, there is that initial romance of joining something with a reputation that is bigger than life, but that romance can die quickly if the experience doesn’t live up to the hype. The BSA looses more Scouts in the first 6 months of the troop experience than any other age. Sense of belonging has to be earned by both parties. All I’m saying is Scouts can see the difference between using titles for political correctness or for personal growth. It’s not the words, it’s the body language. And on the forum (not you); it’s the tone, not the words. Barry

As a Conditional Scouter, I don’t know why this silliness is so hard for new scouters. Scouts of the troop age can see through adults’ words and wording. What they want from adults is respect. Respect your Scouts as adults, they will respect your experience of life and wisdom. Barry

We practiced our hand carving (😁sorry, wood carving) skills on our Space Derby and Pinewood Derby kits. Later-on a Indian neckerchief slide. Barry