Leadership as "Authenticity"

[David CO]

7 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

 

Maybe we stop pretending to teach leadership and just stick to knots.

 

Much better than constantly preaching nots.

[CynicalScouter]

24 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

Perhaps in a sense, the BSA leadership themselves are missing the point of authenticity in their own leadership style?

Let's go back to the original post.

Quote

Great leaders understand that their reputation for authenticity needs to be painstakingly earned and carefully managed.

BSA's reputation for authenticity got nuked with the abuse accusations and a American population that looks at Scouting as "hokey" and anachronistic. I'll take the second part first.

Scouting as hokey and anachronistic: Scouting did not move quickly to embrace changes in American culture (homosexuals, girls, etc.) On the contrary, it fought it tooth and nail, up to the U.S. Supreme Court no less in the Dale case. Thus by the time it did pivot, it had already lost any good will that might have been generated from it. Movements on homosexuals and girls were not looked at as positive actions to advance and expand scouting. They were looked as negative reactions of an organization that was floundering to stay relevant and alive. Or, put another way, the "authentic" position for BSA would have been

1) To have adopted these changes in the 1990s as a broader commitment to the America ideals

2) To have NOT adopted these changes at all and stuck to a diminishing, "pure" scouting experience

As it is, National's moves don't look authentic. They look like excuses.

The abuse accusations: National screwed up. Whether they were 10% responsible or 90% responsible, they were responsible to some degree. Rather than owning up to it quick, the went into denial mode. And there may have been good reasons (even admitting 1% fault was a bad LEGAL strategy, but would have been a better PUBLIC RELATIONS one).

And YPT is the same. Yes it is part to ensure youth protection. But it is ALSO to protect National, Councils, COs, and units from legal liability. They will never, ever say this quiet part out loud, however.

So National lost is credibility with everyone. The traditionalists hate the changes. The non-traditionalists look at it is as National dragged kicking and screaming and not doing it out of a change of heart but as a panic move.

It took decades to build up Scouting's authenticity and a decade to end it (or two if you go back to the Dale case in 2000 and want to count it from there).

[yknot]

6 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Let's go back to the original post.

BSA's reputation for authenticity got nuked with the abuse accusations and a American population that looks at Scouting as "hokey" and anachronistic. I'll take the second part first.

Scouting as hokey and anachronistic: Scouting did not move quickly to embrace changes in American culture (homosexuals, girls, etc.) On the contrary, it fought it tooth and nail, up to the U.S. Supreme Court no less in the Dale case. Thus by the time it did pivot, it had already lost any good will that might have been generated from it. Movements on homosexuals and girls were not looked at as positive actions to advance and expand scouting. They were looked as negative reactions of an organization that was floundering to stay relevant and alive. Or, put another way, the "authentic" position for BSA would have been

1) To have adopted these changes in the 1990s as a broader commitment to the America ideals

2) To have NOT adopted these changes at all and stuck to a diminishing, "pure" scouting experience

As it is, National's moves don't look authentic. They look like excuses.

The abuse accusations: National screwed up. Whether they were 10% responsible or 90% responsible, they were responsible to some degree. Rather than owning up to it quick, the went into denial mode. And there may have been good reasons (even admitting 1% fault was a bad LEGAL strategy, but would have been a better PUBLIC RELATIONS one).

And YPT is the same. Yes it is part to ensure youth protection. But it is ALSO to protect National, Councils, COs, and units from legal liability. They will never, ever say this quiet part out loud, however.

So National lost is credibility with everyone. The traditionalists hate the changes. The non-traditionalists look at it is as National dragged kicking and screaming and not doing it out of a change of heart but as a panic move.

It took decades to build up Scouting's authenticity and a decade to end it (or two if you go back to the Dale case in 2000 and want to count it from there).

This is an accurate and sad litany and is why scouts needs to stake out fresh territory in a familiar landscape:  Focus the organization on getting youth outdoors. All, or at least most, of the pieces of traditional scouting can still be a part of the overall program but should not monopolize the experience the way they do now.  All the aspects that have eroded scouting's prestige and reputation are linked to things like allowing rote advancement, an overemphasis on religion, and management by marketing instead of by scout values to take it over. Covid has been a crisis but it is also scouting's best and still most overlooked opportunity. It's time for the organization to evolve. 

 

[ParkMan]

40 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Let's go back to the original post.

BSA's reputation for authenticity got nuked with the abuse accusations and a American population that looks at Scouting as "hokey" and anachronistic. I'll take the second part first.

Scouting as hokey and anachronistic: Scouting did not move quickly to embrace changes in American culture (homosexuals, girls, etc.) On the contrary, it fought it tooth and nail, up to the U.S. Supreme Court no less in the Dale case. Thus by the time it did pivot, it had already lost any good will that might have been generated from it. Movements on homosexuals and girls were not looked at as positive actions to advance and expand scouting. They were looked as negative reactions of an organization that was floundering to stay relevant and alive. Or, put another way, the "authentic" position for BSA would have been

1) To have adopted these changes in the 1990s as a broader commitment to the America ideals

2) To have NOT adopted these changes at all and stuck to a diminishing, "pure" scouting experience

As it is, National's moves don't look authentic. They look like excuses.

The abuse accusations: National screwed up. Whether they were 10% responsible or 90% responsible, they were responsible to some degree. Rather than owning up to it quick, the went into denial mode. And there may have been good reasons (even admitting 1% fault was a bad LEGAL strategy, but would have been a better PUBLIC RELATIONS one).

And YPT is the same. Yes it is part to ensure youth protection. But it is ALSO to protect National, Councils, COs, and units from legal liability. They will never, ever say this quiet part out loud, however.

So National lost is credibility with everyone. The traditionalists hate the changes. The non-traditionalists look at it is as National dragged kicking and screaming and not doing it out of a change of heart but as a panic move.

It took decades to build up Scouting's authenticity and a decade to end it (or two if you go back to the Dale case in 2000 and want to count it from there).

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 membership & money ahead of program.  Decisions like the seemingly arbitrary changes to YPT rules.  The last minute hikes in fees.  That unit level Scouters feel pushed around by DEs and council volunteers. 

In short, is the issue really one of the macro membership issues or one of unit level volunteers feeling neglected and pushed around?

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by ParkMan
grammer

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

I just removed my latest response.

Ya know ... I wanted to assert a good framework through which we can teach leadership.  Perhaps, this channel shows we can't do that.

Maybe we stop pretending to teach leadership and just stick to knots.

 

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.

[CynicalScouter]

5 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

That unit level Scouters think that national is continually putting membership & money ahead of program.  Decisions like the seemingly arbitrary changes to YPT rules.  The last minute hikes in fees.  That unit level Scouters feel pushed around by DEs and council volunteers. 

Ok, there's a second level you are picking at. Mine was macro (larger U.S. trends). Yours micro. But mine leads to yours.

The need to put membership & money ahead of program. The arbitrary changes to YPT. The last-minute fee hikes. Why do you think that is? The abuse cases + collapse in membership = financial stress + bankruptcy + the need for YPT changes (semi-constantly) in order to avoid any additional legal liability and prop up an organization that has seen massive membership declines.

BSA lost its authenticity. Its claim to moral clarity (remember calling someone a "boy scout" once mean squeaky clean and trustworthy, pure Americana) is gone. Its claim to financial goodwill in the form of donations is gone. It alienated the traditionalists and non-traditionalists.

BSA was built and developed for a post World War II era and relied on public trust and confidence in institutions of all sorts. Those are gone. Name a single institution that can garner majority support. The courts are the only one (and that's as a whole, poll the African American community how they view the institution of the courts). Military also still polls over 50%.

Check out Gallup.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx

Even if BSA was 100% "authentic", even if the abuse cases never happened, no COVID, nothing, the organization was going to collapse because it relies in an undercurrent (60s Americana and a devotion to country) that is gone. Add in the abuse cases, and you get what we have now. And the "gays and girls" drove out a lot of the "traditionalists."

Pushed around by DEs and council volunteers: First, some of this is baked in the cake of any organization that consists of more than 1 level. The higher level folks never, ever "get" those who are in the level(s) below. I'd lay odds complaints about "National doesn't get it" goes back at least to the 1970s Improved Scout Program. Second, see above. DEs and council volunteers are being told: boost your numbers and funding or your district/council dies. Funding and numbers are down, all around, in general (yes, there are bright spots). No one wants to get merged. So they press what buttons need to get pressed.

And there you have it. BSA has no authentic leadership, it is trying to tread water and stop the bleeding in order to get to something that looks like a stable membership and business model (and yes, I said business model). That doesn't mean Roger Mosby as an individual leader isn't authentic. Maybe he is. But he's coming into an organization where the cupboard is bare in terms of good will and faith.

What they need is Scouters who can say "I trust National is trying to do the best it can in a bad situation."

What they got, instead, is "What the heck is National doing?"

[walk in the woods]

3 hours ago, fred8033 said:

I just removed my latest response.

Ya know ... I wanted to assert a good framework through which we can teach leadership.  Perhaps, this channel shows we can't do that.

Maybe we stop pretending to teach leadership and just stick to knots.

 

I agree with @ParkMan, this is a good topic.  But the thread does point out a challenge with the concept of authenticity, namely, it's in the eye of the beholder.

I didn't bring up the GNY Council issue to rehash the gays/girls issue. But it does point out the challenges with a concept like authenticity.  Some people saw that decision as authentic, leaders doing what they thought was right regardless of the rules of the organization.  Others, saw it as inauthentic because the leaders didn't uphold the rules of the organization they'd signed up to serve.  Much like @CynicalScouter charged against @David CO.  Your own OP said it explicity:

Authenticity is a quality that others must attribute to you.

We can pick any number of issues we've discussed in this forum that confirm the "others must attribute to you" reality.  For example. Laser Tag/squirt guns.  We've were initially told it was a safety issue, then we learned it really was a "simulated firearm" issue.  Some folks find the simulated firearm reason authentic leadership, others, including every kid and parent I ever worked with, thought it was a load of PC bumpkus, well, let's call it inauthentic.  

The gaslighting on dodgeball is another good example.  We were told it was never an approved activity.  When it was pointed out, with documentation, that it had been listed as an activity, we got doublespeak.  Some people no doubt agreed that the ban on dodgeball was authentic leadership in taking a stand against bullying or whatever the reason was, others, not so much.  

Now, if in all those cases the BSA had come out and said, look, the insurance company lawyers have told us we can't do these things, people would have accepted that answer.  They'd have ignored it anyway, but, they'd have accepted that answer as authentic.  Instead, we got inauthentic "safety" arguments that defied common sense.  The risk of being perceived as inauthentic, is to be ignored.  That's where BSA leadership finds itself.

Ultimately, I think authenticity is implicitly wrapped up in trustworthiness.  If you've ever thought, "I just don't trust that guy" you've made a judgement on "that guy's" authenticity.  If you've ever been duped by someone, the cliché used car salesman say, you've experienced somebody who can fake authenticity.  I don't think authenticity can be taught as a skill but rather only as a concept; like trust and integrity, it is built up over time by the consistency of ones actions.  

 

[ParkMan]

 

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

Pushed around by DEs and council volunteers: First, some of this is baked in the cake of any organization that consists of more than 1 level. The higher level folks never, ever "get" those who are in the level(s) below.  [...] Second, see above. DEs and council volunteers are being told: boost your numbers and funding or your district/council dies. Funding and numbers are down, all around, in general (yes, there are bright spots). No one wants to get merged. So they press what buttons need to get pressed.

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 hall answering tough questions from unit leaders?  In other corporations this kind of thing happens all the time. 

It would not be hard for the BSA to begin to remedy this.  For example - what if the BSA gave an ACSE the title of "Chief Scout" and put him/her in charge of programming.  As part of that person's job, he/she person held monthly town hall meetings around the country.  The Chief Scout fielded tough questions from unit volunteers and gave honest answers.  The Chief Scout painted the vision of the organization.  Sessions are recorded and put online for all to see.  What if that person made a statement early on that "we will not sacrifice program quality for membership."  Don't sugar coat things, be honest, genuine, and direct - in other words, be an authentic leader.  I have a hunch that volunteers would love a person like that.  

That's just one idea - I'm sure other smart people can come up with 10 more.

[yknot]

2 hours ago, ParkMan said:

 

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 hall answering tough questions from unit leaders?  In other corporations this kind of thing happens all the time. 

It would not be hard for the BSA to begin to remedy this.  For example - what if the BSA gave an ACSE the title of "Chief Scout" and put him/her in charge of programming.  As part of that person's job, he/she person held monthly town hall meetings around the country.  The Chief Scout fielded tough questions from unit volunteers and gave honest answers.  The Chief Scout painted the vision of the organization.  Sessions are recorded and put online for all to see.  What if that person made a statement early on that "we will not sacrifice program quality for membership."  Don't sugar coat things, be honest, genuine, and direct - in other words, be an authentic leader.  I have a hunch that volunteers would love a person like that.  

That's just one idea - I'm sure other smart people can come up with 10 more.

The problems you outline are largely attributable to the inherently dysfunctional organizational structure of scouting. There is little to no accountability in the scouting hierarchy. We have at least five levels of operation -- CO, unit, district, council, and national -- and little connection between them. In a corporate structure, low level employees with an issue generally at least have an HR department. There is no such function in scouts. We have four separate tiers with their hands out for fundraising and they are each only truly interested in or accountable to their own needs -- COs, who sometimes solicit direct fundraising support from units, units, who need dues, districts and councils, who run FOS and popcorn and whatever else, and National. By design, COs and units are largely isolated and there is no conduit for requiring accountability from Councils or National. There are accountability gaps everywhere you look and I believe this is partly why we were so successfully exploited by child predators. It's no coincidence that our structure is somewhat similar to that of the Catholic Church. Before scouting became so focused on marketing (money), membership and advancement, the structure worked OK but it no longer does. 

One of the good things that could possibly come out of bankruptcy would be a more functional organizational structure. 

[qwazse]

If we wanted to put a date on corporate inauthenticity, we could go back to the 60s when National imposed the ageist policy of an artificial deadline on rank advancement. It’s as good a boundary as any between 5 decades of growth and 5 decades of decline.

[qwazse]

More propositions:

The authentic patrol roams the land, observes, and reports. The authentic patrol leader qualifies to take his/her friends hiking and camping. The authentic first class scout can be trusted to safely hike and camp with a half dozen friends.

An inauthentic patrol is an administrative unit of a troop. An inauthentic patrol leader checks all the boxes. An inauthentic first class scout achieves skill demonstration with no concern for mastery.

[InquisitiveScouter]

3 minutes ago, qwazse said:

An inauthentic first class scout achieves skill demonstration with no concern for mastery.

I hate "one and done."  It is a cancer eating away at the outdoor program... for the youth and the adults...

Our long-standing Troop policy (since before we joined) was that Scouts over First Class could sign off requirements up to First Class.  When reviewing some Scouts recently, we discovered widespread pencil-whipping of requirements by a few older Scouts.  I questioned them individually, and they admitted it.  All had been signing off one or more requirements that they had no current working knowledge of...first aid, navigation, woods tools and knots, etc...

So, moratorium on that policy.  But the damage was done...it has taken time to rebuild some basic skills into the "corporate knowledge".  The results are beginning to show...small things...knots tied correctly on tents, tarps, and lashings...Scouts actually bringing their Scout essentials on an outing...Scouts studying their Handbooks because they know that is what they will be tested on...dishes are cleaned (nearly) after every meal...Patrols actually have Patrol flags, yells, and a group identity/esprit de corps...and adults learning the skills because, for the interim, only they are signing off requirements.  And, the most common refrain at camp from adults is now "Did you ask your Patrol Leader?"  (You have to train the adults, too!!!)

I am trying to get them back to the point where the vision is realized...Scouts teaching Scouts, and signing them off...a work in progress...

Anybody else out there look into this closely and find something different??

 

[CynicalScouter]

37 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Anybody else out there look into this closely and find something different??

No.

My son's unit had an SM that had checked out for years and finally replaced. The new SM came in 12 months before we arrived but you could tell the years of damage. The newer/younger scouts were in the position in some cases of teaching the older scouts because they had done things like knots and 4 steps to advancement for AOL rank. I listened to several conversations that consisted of older, theoretically senior scouts, saying things like "yeah, sounds right I think" and having to scramble to find things in their own Scoutbook.

For get EDGE, the crossover (or new) scouts were EDGE-methoding the older ones.

But the unit was cranking out Eagles left, right, and center.

[David CO]

10 hours ago, ParkMan said:

This is why senior leaders need to be out regularly interacting with unit leaders. 

I don't blame them for this.  Our unit doesn't want them.  We would prefer that they stay away.  On the rare occasion someone does show up, we aren't very cordial.  We don't even offer them a cup of coffee.

[CynicalScouter]

10 minutes ago, David CO said:

On the rare occasion someone does show up, we aren't very cordial.  We don't even offer them a cup of coffee.

That's simply rude not to mention unscoutlike (friendly, courteous, kind).

And if your CO was/is a Catholic parish I think you said, I'd say downright Unchristian.