Fear the Scoutmaster who doesn't fear god

[Eagledad]

Hi All. I heard a lecture that put all my experiences and wisdom from scouting in a nutshell. This isn't a thread on god, or God, and scouting. This is about the scoutmaster setting the example of servant leadership by being a servant leader.

Our definition of Servant Leadership here is Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy built on the belief that the most effective leaders strive to serve others. It's an easy leadership style to understand, but much harder to do because servant leadership requires the humility to learn the desires and needs of the followers, and then serve them toward those needs and desires. Christians have the example of Jesus preaching that the one who seeks the most must serve the least.

The  problem with leaders these days is most don't serve with humility and they don't have a consistent vision to agree on. We have often discussed here that scouts learn by watching, not by hearing. For a youth to change their philosophy of behavior, they must observe the behavior and believe it is one worth duplicating. Humans of the scout age don't permanently choose to change a behavior from intimidations or lectures. They must accept the behavior is better than the one they have.

One of the biggest obstacles troops struggle to over come is developing a culture where the scouts trust and respect the adults enough to believe their behavior is worth watching and duplicating. That respect takes time and requires a lot of effort of humility from the adults. But, if the adults behavior is consistent and they provide unselfish reasons for the direction of the troop activities, they will buy into it because their choices in the activities generally make them like themselves better in those activities. That may sound selfish, but the prepubescent mind is paranoid of danger, so changing behaviors requires changing to watch what they feel is a safer behavior. Which is one reason why threats of punishment or sway of lecture generally doesn't have much affect on personal growth. Scouts need to watch safe-decision-making behavior to desire it. 

As for giving scouts a direction to develop their activities, I found, through my years working with Scoutmasters, that very few of them have vision. And without vision, the Scoutmaster doesn't have a rudder to hold course. That is OK, the program can still be fun and rewarding, just not a life changing experience. Scouts in successful scout-run type troops generally observe two visions from the adults, specifically the SM. They  see a belief in a higher spiritual power, and moral direction for behavior. It's not that scouts are looking for a godly person to lead, they are just respecting a leader who doesn't believe they are the supreme authority. How is this person any better than any other adult?

The main reason god is mentioned in Scouting in general as a moral action for scouts is that god is the highest authority and gives unit leaders more power to encourage a moral changing program. Kind of a Good Cop Bad Cop relationship. God sets the rules, the SM just guides the program with them. The traits in the Scout Law are the righteous actions of Scout. They are not the opinions of just another blow-hard adult. All actions by anyone in the unit can be held accountable by god. If not the units leaders, then the family. A scout is supposed to learn how to judged their personal decisions toward others with the Scout Law. So, the Scoutmaster who credits (in words or actions) a higher moral authority for their application of the Scout law is showing submission to the higher authority. Servant Leadership starts at the very top. 

Also, the cultural vision sets the direction of the program activities for all the scouts. That doesn't mean the Scoutmaster lectures the vision over and over. The Scoutmaster consistently judges the actions and activities of the program and relates a tone of direction. And, Scoutmaster's behavior goes far with setting the tone. I had a little time on a campout and walked over to watch the scouts play Capture The Flag. I was in the shadows, so they couldn't see me. When a new scout on his first campout started cursing, a senior scout said, without an interruption to his actions in the game, "we don't cuss here." As far as I knew, we never talked about cussing in the troop. When I asked about it with my son, he said nobody cusses in the troop publicly dad. School yes, but not here." The leader is the gatekeeper of the moral actions of the community. Good or bad, the actions of the community come from the top. Whether the vision is freedom to make choices or a strict environment of rules and guidelines, it generally comes from the leader. In this discussion, the Scoutmaster. And he was right, we adults didn't cuss. And that culture bled into the scouts culture. It was a profound moment for me.

When I was the district Scoutmaster course instructor, I also invited Troop Committee Chairs because I wanted them to understand what the patrol method program was, and I instructed them to take responsibility for picking the right Scoutmaster. Or maybe righteous Scoutmaster. A leader with vision and humility of the higher power makes all the difference in the world.

Well, I have rambled enough. I am hoping for some  discussion because the subject of Scoutmaster servant leadership can be complicated. We don't seem to have a lot of experienced guidance lately on this forum, although there are few here with really good wisdom. The forum has been dominated by the nonprogram struggles from outside interference and forum membership has dwindled. Maybe the scouters in the trenches can change that trend. If scouting is to keep going, the wisdom of experience would go a long way helping the present and future adults run a great program. 

I love this scouting stuff. 

Barry

[DuctTape]

I agree the SM (and all adults) should have the mindset and character necessary to serve the scouts. In addition to the focused vision of the SM, the "how tos" using the patrol method, motto, oath, etc... must be shared and understood by the rest of the Scouters especially the ASMs. Communicating to the Committee the "how tos", their alignment to the vision and the direct line linking the methods to the aims will not just help the committee to understand but also facilitate the SMs work. The necessary (thin yet unbreakable) thread within all of this is as you alluded to with the servant leadership,  Adult Association as a method. The scouts need to see, witness, and experience first hand the adults demonstrating the highest level of leadership, communication, patrol method, character, etc... The Scouters should be hyper-focused on being  exemplars whom the scouts WILL emulate.

Perhaps we can use this thread to impart some specific examples of "how tos" , their connection to a vision and use of the patrol method to maximize SM effectiveness?

[SSScout]

Well said, ED...   

Getting the Scout (the adult?)  to buy into the Scout Law and Promise as ideals that can ACTUALLY (actually!) apply for the good in one's life can be hard. 

I had a p/t job once as a carpenters helper. My crew chief was a crusty old carp, the kind that knew how to frame a roof by calling down the dimensions to a cutter on the ground and getting the right slant on top. We had just finished a frame up on the first floor of a house, he came up looked around, said' "stretch your tape here" indicating the diagonal, corner to corner, and then for the other diagonal. An inch and a half difference in the twenty plus foot lengths. He told us to take out the one wall and rehang it. "Why?" asked one of our crew. "after the drywall, plaster and paint,  who's gonna know?"   "He said 'You and I would know... Take it down and redo it."

In today's world of "believe me" and be rewarded by me....   to what are we loyal? Not to who.... 

[Eagledad]

6 hours ago, DuctTape said:

Perhaps we can use this thread to impart some specific examples of "how tos" , their connection to a vision and use of the patrol method to maximize SM effectiveness?

Great idea.

[Eagledad]

On 7/6/2022 at 6:28 AM, DuctTape said:

I agree the SM (and all adults) should have the mindset and character necessary to serve the scouts. In addition to the focused vision of the SM, the "how tos" using the patrol method, motto, oath, etc... must be shared and understood by the rest of the Scouters especially the ASMs. Communicating to the Committee the "how tos", their alignment to the vision and the direct line linking the methods to the aims will not just help the committee to understand but also facilitate the SMs work. The necessary (thin yet unbreakable) thread within all of this is as you alluded to with the servant leadership,  Adult Association as a method. The scouts need to see, witness, and experience first hand the adults demonstrating the highest level of leadership, communication, patrol method, character, etc... The Scouters should be hyper-focused on being  exemplars whom the scouts WILL emulate.

Perhaps we can use this thread to impart some specific examples of "how tos" , their connection to a vision and use of the patrol method to maximize SM effectiveness?

I think the how tos will be a little different for each troop because the personalities of adults. Adults must agree on the vision so that everyone buys in to it. Or, at least, they are willing to accept it as the course direction. I found that most adults don't really  care about a vision so long as the Scoutmaster seems to have a grasp of where the troop is going. In my case, I lead a Troop meeting twice a year after each SPL election that required all the scouts and their parents to attend. I spent the first 20 minutes explaining Aims, Methods, Patrol Method (we call it boy run), and our troop vision. While I have passion for those subjects and could discuss them all day, I found 20 minutes was about all that could hold their focus. We also discussed the structure of the troop from CO down to the new scout's parents. That is how I tried to keep everyone at least understanding why I drove the program the direction it was going.

From the scouts perspective, they didn't really care about the 3 Aims (citizenship, character, and fitness), except that they planned and activity to practice each at campout. They, however, did understand the 8 Methods because each patrol leader had to set a goal for each method. Most were simple. But, the real point of all that is the scouts learned that the adults were not responsible for the 8 Methods other than the program had to use all eight methods, and the adults were responsible for the 3 Aims. The scouts knew my vision for them, in simple terms, was character development, we also had the vision of scout leadership and adventure as visions.

But, what I kept saying, without calling it a vision, is the program was going toward a troop that if the adults didn't show up, the meeting and activities would go on as it was planned. The scouts had to take total ownership for that to happen and that was the real vision we were striving toward while I was SM.

What I learned over the years is that the real goal for the adults is to develop a culture in the troop that the scouts use as their community. I also found that to be a real challenge for most troops and they never reach a culture where they felt comfortable letting the scouts run the whole program. The reason is that the adults have to be fluid with the program and change their adult roles as the scouts mature. I generally guided the SPL to act more SM like on campouts if they had the skills and maturity of an experienced older scout. I wanted them to keep growing.

We had a discussion on this forum about troop maturity a few years ago and those of us who had experience that kind of maturity agreed that 5 years is about the length of time to reach it. As I siad, the real problem is being humble enough to change and give the scouts more responsibilities as they matured with their skills. A troop that does that eventually ends up with the scouts running the program and the adults watching or just sitting at the fire.

So, "how tos": No adults allowed in PLC meetings unless they get permission from the SPL. That includes the SM. I was never refuse permission., Adults never stood in front, or even near, youth leaders unless they were asked to be there by the scouts. Adults never put up the Scout sign before scouts to get the groups attention. If the adult needed to calm or quiet the group like providing information at troop meeting, the adult simply asked the scout near them to get the groups attention. Easy once the adults get in the habit and it really reinforces 

Other things I did was I alway put a box of Tootsie Roll Pops in the middle of camp under the stipulation that scouts can have as many as they want provide they take only one at a time and they don't leave trash. If the SPL, or any scout, found trash, they box was taken away. I also carried a pocket full of Fireballs cinnamon candy and handed them out when I saw a scout do a good dead. I was often presently surprised of how most of the scouts accepted the gift humbly. They didn't think what they did was special or stood out. I also brought a cooler full of soft drinks on campouts for the PLC to drink each night during their meetings. The PLC worked hard and I wanted to show my appreciation. Our PLC usual meetings where before each troop meeting, so I often brought them pizza. 

Barry