ParkMan

I would think this would be a great position for the right person to make very visible. It could really go a long way towards building confidence in the hearts and minds of volunteers if the BSA was out proactively talking about these things. However, the challenge isn't to come out and talk about all the changes the BSA wants to make - but instead to be out listening to the obstacles volunteers are facing and then working internally to resolve them. Actually, thinking about it some more, I wonder if the leader the BSA needs out talking to people is the National Commissioner. Instead o

Agreed. The unit is a separate legal entity from the council which in turn is a separate legal entity from national. Here's how I think the org chart effectively looks. I think that because national has control over the program itself, the CEO or President of the BSA can effectively be considered the "leader" of Scouting. In this case it's not leadership in terms of ownership, but leadership of the program itself. In this discussion of leadership with youth, I would be comfortable distinguishing between ownership and leadership. You don't have to own something to provide le

I guess I'd simply say - I don't blame them for this either. However, the leadership lesson is that leaders who want to better connect with those they lead have to want to connect. That you don't want it is all the more a reason for them to want to hear why. Even if it's not some trumped up photo op, but a discussion about why your unit wants nothing to do with anyone but your own unit.

What I believe this leadership article is implicitly saying is that authentic leaders should work to cultivate a culture of communication and openness. That there are 5 layers in the BSA is fine. There are many organizations with a lot more layers than that which have managed to resolve this kind of problem. Really, just having the senior leaders of the BSA get out there and start visibly talking to unit leaders would be a good first step. A monthly update from the CEO would be a good step. To me, the leadership lesson in all of this is that a leader has to want to be authentic - it r

This is not a universal truth and does not need to be this way. In a fundamentally hierarchical organization, the views of the people in positions of authority are indeed influenced by the people surrounding the leader. This is why senior leaders need to be out regularly interacting with unit leaders. Senior BSA leaders have to want to understand the issues in the field. Further, senior BSA leaders have to want the unit leaders to know that they want to know the issues. Roundtables, webinars, online meetings, you name it. When was the last time the leaders of the BSA held a town ha

Maybe I'm eternally an optimist, but I think that by discussing these issues we can begin to make headway in terms of understanding each other on them. I've learned a lot on this forum from the wide backgrounds we have on the issues we discuss here. In fact, even in these seemingly frustrating discussions we have, I learn a lot about the wide array of perspectives on this activity we call Scouting. I've become a better Scouter for it too. I think this discussion on leadership is a fascinating one and am glad you started it.

Thank you for the good history. But, I have to wonder if we're mixing issues here. When I started in Scouting 10 years ago, it didn't seem that the unit leader liked national any more than they do today. Are the issues that leaders have with national really all about the membership moves? Most of those membership issues were in a very different place when I started than they are today. The issues I seem to hear the most fervently here have to do with what I'd call tone-deaf councils & national leadership. That unit level Scouters think that national is continually putting mem

I'm curious if we can leverage some lessons for the Scouts from all of this. Let's go back to the original topic of this discussion - authenticity. I've felt for a very long time that a significant portion of the Scouting volunteers do not respect the BSA national organization nor many of the councils. They find the decisions of the organization difficult to understand. They believe that decisions are made that do not reflect the needs of the Scout or the units. Perhaps in a sense, the BSA leadership themselves are missing the point of authenticity in their own leadership style?

Yep - I think this is true of most parents. I also don't fault the BSA from trying to be a leader in setting this rule. Look at how much more awareness and though this topic gets because of the high bar the BSA set. They have created much discussion on this subject - a good thing.

That's too simplistic. The best leaders I know do not blindly obey every rule and directive - they balance the needs of their team or organization against what is being asked of them. The mark of a strong leader is that they balance the needs of the organization that they are in with the needs of the team that they lead. They then make good decisions as a leader based on that information. I will take a leader with these sort of critical thinking skills any day over someone who simply just blindly obeys a command. Let's remember that obedient is but one point in the Scout Law. T

You have to put the YTP 24/7 rules into context. A primary goal the BSA at the national level is to reduce issues of child abuse in their membership as low as possible. With that in mind, it makes sense for the BSA to have very aggressive YPT rules. The primary goal of most volunteers is to raise their children. So when this goal of the BSA conflicts with the goal of parent volunteers, parents are going to react in different ways. Again, some will side with the BSA, some will side with their children's needs. It stinks that this creates situations where we have to choose betwee

Leaders need to understand their role as team member as well. A patrol leader leads a patrol. A patrol leader is also a member of the PLC which is led by the SPL. A Scoutmaster leads the Assistant Scoutmasters, but also is a member of the team led by the Committee Chair A Troop Committee Chair leads the volunteer adults of the troop, but also is a member of the team led by the COR. Leaders also need to understand how to balance the goals of the team they lead with the goals of the team they are on: A patrol leader will recognize when the patrol is burning out and

I apologize, I went back and looked at the questions. If they are the same ones I have, it is stated that no-one will see your answers except for you. I get the sense you're worrying too much about these questions. This is simply an exercise to help encourage you to think about yourself in this way. Yes, for someone with self confidence issues (I assume you meant that you have lower self confidence), I can see why answering questions about yourself might be uncomfortable. I would encourage you to give yourself the permission to answer these - even if you feel like the answers make yo

Your definition is better written than mine - but it's what I was thinking. Let's use yours. My core point is that authenticity is focused on how to get people to want to follow you. Authenticity is a very important tool for a leader. Like any tool, a person has to understand it, master it, and know when to apply it. It's one of a number of core tools that a leader should be aware of and draw on in their role as a leader. I would be careful about your statement: There are indeed times and places where you have to be a bully or a dictator as a leader. If you look at a nu

The pre-course 20 questions? In our course, it wouldn't be a deal breaker - but then again, everyone always does it. Why don't you want to answer them?

I think we'd have to explore this more before we attach a disclaimer. In my decade as a leader, I have never made a statement that I felt was something controlled by the BSA. I also disagree with the BSA on a regular basis. I've always felt very comfortable being able to make a distinction between the two. Even in times when I might make a different rule (wheelbarrows) I have no problems saying "folks, I know that you can use a wheelbarrow at home, brut BSA rules prohibit it." I don't feel that makes me any less authentic as a leader. I know we all have different backgrounds and arr

Ohh. I understand better now. Yes, I would see that it would make it harder for you to be authentic is the organization is doing things in your name and creating a false persona. I'm fortunate that I don't work in an environment that creates that hurdle for me. While I do from time to time have to tow the corporate line, I always try to find a way to do so that is in keeping with my own voice. I think we must Scout in very different councils. I always look at the rules from national as simply "the rules". The rules don't govern too much how I relate as a person to others. So,

I've come to appreciate that someone's leadership ability is intrinsically linked to their own comfort in leading other people. Many people are simply disinterested in making decisions for others. There are many reasons for that - some easily addressed, some not. One of the biggest factors I find in this is self-confidence. A person who is full of self doubt and not confident in themself is less likely to be confident making decisions for others. Yet, sometimes it's more ingrained than that. For some, they simply enjoy the act of accomplishing tasks more than they do in leading teams

You've hit on the limitation of these kind of analogies and examples. This article is all about how a leader relates to those people he or she intends to lead. Authenticity is a tool to help the leader connect with the people in their team. Authenticity is not the primary point of being a leader. The primary point of being a leader is to accomplish things. Being authentic is simply a technique to help a leader accomplish things more effectively. Regardless of what you do in life, you probably have to accomplish things. Youth, adult, Scouter, businessman, or teacher - in all o

Great article and fully agree. I liked this quote a lot: To me, this quote gets at the heart of one of the core problems in leadership teaching - balancing how to relate to the people you lead vs. how to set and accomplish goals. Too often in the Scouting context - whether in youth or in adults, you find people struggle with that balance. Trends such as: spending so long trying to build credibility with a team that they fail to lead the team. spending so much time trying to mentor the team that they don't lead the team. focusing so much on getting stuff done that t

I am very sorry to hear the news. My heart goes out to them both. I was them the very best as they recover from it.

Right. As I see it, and the BSA materials describe, the unit is just another program of the CO. The BSA cannot own it any more than it can own a sunday school class. The BSA can come along and say - stop using our materials or can prevent certain adults from being volunteers because it controls who can use the materials. But it certainly doesn't own the unit.

In my own life, I've stopped thinking of it as the CO owns the unit. That suggests that the unit is a separate entity from the church - it is not. I've come to prefer the term "part of". The unit is a part of the CO. The unit is simply using the BSA materials as they put on their own program

@ChristianB - welcome to the forum. It strikes me that the core problem here is one of adult leadership. The Committee Chair should be working with the Scoutmaster to ensure that the Committee is correctly doing it's role. Further, the Committee Chair should be setting direction for the entire adult team to ensure that all the adults are working together so that the troop runs well. The Troop model in the BSA is that the Committee Chair is the leader of the adult team of the troop. That the advancement and finance chairs are feuding with the Scoutmaster is the Committee Chair's re

I'd tell them to pound sand myself. I believe that quoting a cost of $250-$300 a year per scout to fund council operations is probably pretty typical. If you look, a council of 10,000 scouts probably does have an annual budget in the $3 million dollar range. The problem is that councils are expected to raise most of that through donations. The council is capped at $66, meaning that if they want to get all their funding through fees then they are limited to an annual budget of $660,000 for 10,000 scouts. They want to raise more, then they have to do it through real fundraising and appe