ParkMan

The concept of the 5 year rule is sound - but the choice of 5 years was wrong. 7-9 would have been appropriate. The implication of the 5 year rule is: You have to serve 1 year as a troop guide You have to serve 1 year as course director You have to serve 1 year as asst. course director. That means that 3 years of your tenure on the course are spoken for. That leaves 2 years for other positions. It is beneficial for a course director to have been in other positions - asst. quartermaster, quartermaster, scribe, ASM logistics, ASM Troop guides, religious coordinator, etc... What this is going to force council's to do is promote course directors very quickly and the course will end up with less experienced course directors. That's not to say someone cannot do it that quickly. However, at a national level we will see that less experienced course directors will have a negative impact on the quality of the courses. Push that out a couple of years and I think that would have been about right. A Course Director with 7 years of experience in the program is appropriate.

I look at this and don't think failure. I see that the biggest obstacles to unit health today are organizational. Packs & Troops that don't put on fun programs, don't recruit parents to help, don't grow to a sustainable size, etc. Better knowledge of Scout skills would help certainly - but that isn't why packs and troops fold. So the BSA leadership has done a good job with marketing - take something desirable and align it to one of your problems. Now lots of new leaders are motivated to complete Wood Badge and hopefully along the way improve their organizational skills. Isn't that a good thing?

I'd just remind us all that Wood Badge is nothing more than a leadership development program. A Scouter pays their money to attend, the complete the course, they work their ticket, and they receive their beads. There is no board of review and there is no test for membership. No one checks your ethics on the way to the beading. No one looks to see if you're a saint or a jerk. Completing your Wood Badge makes you no better as a Scouter or person that anything else - it just hopefully provides some tools that let you be more effective. Similarly, completing your Wood Badge doesn't make you a pompas wind bag either. I have a hunch that the people who flaunt their beads are simply just arrogant people who like to do that kind of thing - if it wasn't Wood Badge it would be something different. In a program that really has too little training for it's volunteers, I'm glad that Wood Badge exists. I'd love to see other, similar programs for different roles in Scouting. An advanced Scoutmaster course for example. It's just a class folks.

It's probably easier to simply provide federal incentives and contracts to supply last mile broadband service. I suspect that it will end up being a wireless technology anyways. The FCC could administer the program. If money needed to be raised for it, just place a small monthly surcharge on every communications subscription in the US. The 95% of us that have good connectivity could fund the 5% that do not.

I do have to wonder how attentive the troop guide was in this case. When I was a troop guide, it was impressed upon us just how important it was to be aware of the engagement level of each of the participants. Are they learning, are they frustrated, are they having a good experience, etc.? Is someone naturally a quiet person or is something going on that they've pulled back? We always really internalized the idea that we wanted to do everything we could to maximize what people took away from the course. In the interest of living the servant leadership model, we did it quietly, gladly, and to the best of our abilities. While it is certainly possible that she hid it very well, I do have to wonder if signs from her were just missed. But - it is also certainly possible that she simply hid it well too. Despite the effort expended, we were people too and sometimes we missed things. No staff is perfect.

Great examples - please keep them coming. Respectfully, I'd submit that it is the job of the patrol leader on day 3 to organize the timing of that meeting. The troop guide should work with the patrol leader to verify that everyone can attend. Sounds like the patrol leader didn't do their job correctly. It's not the job of the troop guide to lead anything - the troop guide is a guide. In fact, by design our troop guide didn't even come to our meeting between the two weekends. Good feedback - I think there is always room to work in more reminders about servant leadership and how to embrace feedback. It wasn't until well after my course completed that I began to appreciate what it meant by "feedback is a gift." Receiving feedback is essential to me accomplishing my goals. Even negative feedback is critical to understanding how others perceive what I am trying to do. I should want to know how others are perceiving what I am doing.

Hi @5thGenTexan, Great question - regrettably, I don't have an immediate answer for you. Can you remind us again of your position and longer term interest for what you want to do in Scouting? I ask because I think a Cubmaster vs. Scoutmaster/Committee Chair realistically needs different technical skills.

Wow - that's awful. I am under the impression that the quality of courses must vary widely based on the council you are in. In the most recent version of the course, National really has gone out of it's way to try & create a set of minimum standards. I can only guess that it is for courses like yours. I'm sorry to hear that it was done so poorly. It has the potential to be so much more. I'm really sorry to hear about it.

Yes - 100% I'm following that. Troop Guide is one of the most important positions. It's clearly important that troop guides be enthusiastic and well prepared. Nerves are one thing, but they shouldn't simply be reading from the script. I think that at about 7:35 am people should be introducing themselves. Great feedback! Thank you

I've found Wood Badge as it is today a pretty good experience for the vast majority of the participants. Most people I talk to about it seemed to take something away and have had a good experience. In my experience as a Scouter, I've never witnessed any discrimination because you didn't have your Wood Badge: No demands that anyone take Wood Badge No clubs that require earning Wood Badge to join No limits from volunteering for any district or council activity because you didn't earn your Wood Badge Perhaps the thing we need to do is really clarify what Wood Badge is, is not, and cut through all the rumors about bad behavior around the courses and by former participants.

Thank you for the honesty about your experience. This will help as people prepare for future courses - both from a participant and staff perspective. I think the course mixes different styles in order to bring value to the widest possible number of people. For some, the value is in the lectures. For some, comes from the hands on moments outside the lectures and prepared materials. For some, they learn from hearing the perspectives of different people in the course. Some simply enjoy the networking and camaraderie of the course. Yet, I fully appreciate that some of these other styles are themselves off putting to participants like yourself. I would love to hear your thoughts you may have on how the course can still leverage different techniques, yet still be something you would have been more comfortable in. I very much appreciate that you gave this a try and ultimately decided it wasn't for you. Your input is invaluable. For what it's worth - don't sweat not getting your beads/neckerchief and not being part of "the club". While friendships certainly develop out of the course, those friendships are really little more than people who know each other becoming friends. After a course, they'll have spent 5 days together. People tend to know each other more - but that's as far as it should go. I have absolutely no idea who has their beads and who does not. Most Scouters I know rarely wear their beads or neckerchief outside of training or other formal events. Almost never is there a discussion about whether someone has their beads or not. When it does happen, it's usually to simply note that someone would be a good person to take a the course. We have a very strong Wood Badge tradition in our council and there most certainly is no "club".

Regardless of which mindset a leader is, I find that almost all of them follow the safety and youth protection rules. For the most part the safety rules are reasonable. For the most part the youth protection rules are reasonable as well. I find that there are less than 5% of the rules that are the challenge. These rules are frustrating because most unit leaders will follow them, but know well that their programs and not materially safer or stronger because of them. I think @JoeBob's comment accurately captures the conversation that occurs in many troop committees: Those 5% of the rules that are frustrating to them. They look at those rules and say "ugh, I now cannot do this because some leaders with no common sense messed up." Most leaders will follow these rules because they have to - it's the price of entry to being able to use the BSA programming. But, it is not because they have some desire to comply with BSA rules. It is simply something that they have to do. The danger in all of these is that they tick off the BSA's primary customer - CO's and unit leaders. Scouts are not the customer of the BSA, parents are not the customer of the BSA, councils are not the customer of the BSA - CO's and unit leaders are. Unit leaders put on the program & unit leaders do the recruiting. Unit leaders become the district and council volunteers that make the next layer go. There is no Scouting without CO's & unit leaders. So in short - rules are fine, scrutinize every new rule to make sure it is absolutely necessary, look for alternatives to simply adding another rule, & understand that unit leaders are the heart of what makes Scouting work.

Despite breaking up AT&T, the remnants of what was once have themselves evolved into a few very large companies. It strikes me that we're better off today with having Verizon & AT&T both exist in the space that was one AT&T. This forced competition with each other is a good thing. Competition is almost always good for business and it makes the companies involved stronger. Products get better, their service gets better, and prices drop. This is a good thing because is most areas there is always another choice - "do nothing". Competition between the primary companies leads to the companies also doing a better job competing against that always present third choice of "do nothing." I suspect that this is because companies that compete must relentlessly focus on knowing their market and their consumers. If the bell system had not been broken up and these companies forced to compete, I suspect that we would not see the communications options we have today - lower cost long distance, cell phones, smart phones, data over mobile, etc... When I was a kid you rarely called your family in a different city because each call was so expensive. Today we call them without even thinking about it. This competition has greatly expanded the impact of communications on our lives. There are few people today who choose "do nothing" because of how impactful communication is.

Sorry to hear that it wasn't the experience for you. Thank you for trying and giving it the day. I would be Interested to hear what in the program didn't resonate with your personality type. As a staffer that kind of feedback is very helpful.

Most units I know are following: Mindset 3: You are a unit leader/unit committee chair/chartered organization/registered adult leader that is running a Scouting program based on the materials provided by the BSA.

Have a great time! Your gear will fit right in. Let us know how it goes.

I understand very well what you are saying and am not dismissing it. The reason why you don't see more Scouters speaking up and doing something about problems is because it is a generally held notion that nothing will change. People become disgruntled in their jobs because they feel they feel they are ignored, not valued, and that the lack influence. This also happens when people feel marginalized. When these things happens, people tend to retreat to the sphere that they have influence over. This is what is happening in Scouting today. Another way to look at authentic leadership is that it is trying to create a culture where the employees feel part of the team. They know their leaders. The understand the vision. They understand the choices. They trust the leadership. You see this in companies where this is working well. In fact, in these cases people often tend to refer to someone in their leadership chain by name. Why? Because they identify and trust that person. We see very little of that in Scouting today. We see example after example of stories from unit leaders who simply feel disconnected from the leadership, who feel marginalized. I am in enough meetings where people say similar things to what you have - why don't the unit leaders step up? Why don't they volunteer? Why don't they support the district/council? They don't because they feel disconnected and marginalized by the "institution." It's easy to say that unit leaders need to stop whining and do more. However, they don't do more because they don't feel a part of that institution. You want to change that dynamic, it has to come from above. The leadership needs to set the tone.

This topic is all about leadership styles and the BSA became the case study we all are discussing. For the purposes of this topic, the leaders we are and have been discussing are the national leaders of the BSA. Now, if we want to expand that to include council or even unit leaders - that is fine. But, in doing so, let's not confuse that subject. By leader here we are talking about someone who through their role is recognized as the leader of a group, team, or organization. Respectfully, that's not the point at all. Your district chair recognized a problem - people complaining. He came up with a solution to that problem - get those people an audience with the council Key 3 so that could gripe to them. That's trying to solve a problem - that's not authentic leadership. It would be authentic leadership if the Council Key 3 said - hey, I recognize a problem in that we're not connecting with unit leaders and we need to - please District Chair, help us start an effort to better connect with the unit volunteers in your district. But, I don't think that's what happened. Yes - as stated before. We are talking leadership styles of leaders. Not expectations on the volunteers in the program. They are different.

Gotcha. I thought all the piling on @David CO was unfair myself. Thanks for sharing the context. Makes sense. Much appreciated!

The first step towards a leader being authentic is to exert effort to do so. That manifests itself in some pretty consistent ways: Demonstrate to the people you lead that you want to hear their input. As the leader, make it clear that you initiated the town hall. As the leader, make an effort to visit units. Be honest and open. Being open doesn't mean you have to give people answers for everything, but it does mean that you don't "sell" them or talk down to them. Communicate, communicate, communicate. If the leader senses that there is a significant concern out there, address it. Specifically, on some of the things you mentioned: I would encourage the national leader to go to those units that are the most hostile. Go to the unit, listen to the concerns, listen, and answer questions. Hostile people are generally frustrated people. Go learn why they are frustrated. Imagine if every time a national leader went to a city, they made a point of visiting with a frustrated unit. Don't make it a photo-op, don't bring 10 aides - just the national leader and the unit leaders. And then just listen and learn. I guarantee that after a few months of doing this national would get a very different perspective of Scouting at the unit level. Imagine when word gets out about national proactively out, listening to units that are struggling. In an authentic leadership model, it is the role of the leader (national or council in this example) to build bridges to the people they lead (unit leaders). The leader needs to build the buy in within their team. As a leader saying - your input isn't valued because you were not motivated to come talk to me - isn't the right model. In this case, your district chair had the initiative to setup the town hall. That is not an example of authentic leadership in action. In the authentic leadership case, the Council Key-3 would have initiated the outreach effort.

I see your point here. I believe the point behind concept is that those who lead need to build support and mindshare from those they are leading. As national has the point position on providing leadership for the overall Scouting program, I believe that they have the onus to initiate this.

@Eagledad - I appreciate your frustration with this topic. I found a decent amount of the posts useful to the discussion. Pretty early on this topic made the jump to use the BSA as a case study of authentic leadership. I found that useful as it's one thing to talk about authentic leadership in the abstract, another to have some case studies. I believe looking at the BSA as an example of leadership and how it is, or is not, applying authentic leadership useful. Concepts like this always find strong agreement in the abstract - it's not till you start looking at the practical applications of it that you find out the real challenges. I really don't mind the negative posts about the BSA. While I don't agree with them, I have heard similar things from other Scouting volunteers for years. I saw it as a unit volunteer, I see it now as a district volunteer. I've sat in meetings on both sides of this discussion - listening to unit volunteers complain about district volunteers, district volunteers complain about council volunteers, council volunteers frustrated with unit volunteers, everyone frustrated with national volunteers. If I ever get involved at the national level (unlikely - but who knows), I suspect I'll hear about their frustrations too. To me, authentic leadership is all about leaders actively working to build mindshare in confidence in their leadership vision and skills amongst those they lead. To me, I like to believe that the negative tone in those posts is an example of a frustrated volunteer who does not buy into the leadership vision and skills of the various leadership efforts in the BSA. They are harsher, but still representative of what I've heard countless times of the years. Further, I've found that a number of the replies to him telling him that he's wrong, incorrect, dangerous, you name it, are also emblematic of what we see in the BSA. So, in short, I find so much of this conversation germaine and an example of why authentic leadership is harder to implement than the rosy article that started this topic. I'd much rather have 10 of these topics than the ones where we skirt around the core issues and keep throwing up our hands.

I'm OK with that too. People passionately advocating for their beliefs and positions is just good old fashioned democracy. I suspect that the founders of the country had as equally contentious debates as we all do today. To me, the lesson I work to remember in my own life is that we're people first. Our commonalities far outweigh our differences. We may disagree on various issues - even to the point of frustration. Yet underneath it all we are decent people just trying to provide for our families, raise our kids, and leave the world a little better place than when we got here.

I think this points to a shift in philosophy that someone practicing authentic leadership has to make. If the BSA wanted to follow an authentic leadership approach, it would need to stop directing and instructing units. The BSA (at the national and council level) would really need to embody more of a trusted advisor or consultant work model. A commissioner (or other similar leader) should never come into a unit and start instructing leaders. Instead, a commissioner would need to employ a rule of "don't offer advice, but respond to requests for help." The commissioner should only step in unasked in cases where there is danger to youth from inaction. Regardless of what the paperwork may say, in 2020, our culture appears to respond much better to consulting help than correction help. This also fits better conceptually to a authentic or servant leadership model.

I've found most every Scouter very friendly in a one-on-one conversation. There is however a much larger negative tone in Scouting. I've been around Scouting long enough to know it's not just a few posters here. There is entirely an anti-council, anti-national, anti-Wood Badge, (and probably others) tone in Scouting. Sadly, I believe that the strained council/national and unit relationships have fostered this for all the reasons we've already discussed. So, yes, I'm optimistic that unit leaders would be welcoming, but I also have come to accept that because these relationships have been so neglected that there is repair work to do. Since the district/council/national organizations are here to support the success of the units, I think the relationship falls on those entities to take the initiative to repair those relationships.