Boy Scouts provides opportunities to practice leadership

My dad, who was Wood Badge Trained with the Boy Scouts and served as a volunteer while I was in a youth in scouting and later as a scoutmaster for years after I had gone on to university, gave me this book a few years back, Baden-Powell : The Two Lives of a Hero. I enjoyed this book. It explaining how Lord Baden-Powell began the scouting movement, his motivations, and his extraordinary efforts to get the program started. At the time I read this book, I was not explicitly trying to teach my children leadership. I was 'winging it' with varying degrees of success. Perhaps I should dig it out of the book boxes in the garage and re-scan it for ideas. And yet, I lived the scouting program for years. We camped at least once per month in Europe and the Eastern US. International Scouting events included Scouts from many places. Boy Scouts is a fantastic program that provides lots of practice opportunities for improving leadership skills. I highly recommend participation in this worldwide program. I gained my first feedback on delegation from my Dad while I was attempting my first role as a patrol leader. Scouting provided me with many opportunities to see other kids my age succeeding in leadership roles, and gave me first hand experience in trying out my own way of leading. It gives lots of chances for peer feedback as youth stumble through leadership skills, almost like honing fine motor controls with toddlers. I continued on through Eagle Scout in this program and it made a significant impact on me at an early age. I've worked as an adult volunteer in scouting too. This program can help your children too. Although Scouts doesn't start until 12 years old, Cub Scouts begins at 7 years old.

What lessons did I learn trying to develop leadership in my own children (so far)?

* they enjoy time spent with you regardless of what you're doing together

* they already could teach courses on influence given their extraordinary persuasiveness when lobbying parents for something they want

* they see hypocrisy quickly, so apologize and correct course when you realize you drifted off course

The Beginning of My Journey of Discovery

A while back I decided I wanted to teach my children leadership. As I thought about this challenge and how to go about it, I reviewed what resources I'd seen on the subject.

When home schooling our children for a time, I had not seen any sufficient home school curriculum on this subject. We'd been to home school conventions and bought much material to teach our children, but I did not recall a specific program on leadership.

Public school touched on it only tangentially. Although Boy Scouts was available for my son, I wanted my daughter to learn and practice leadership skills too. I had many questions. How early was too early? It is such a big subject. What to teach? How to provide practice opportunities and feedback?

I spoke to my dad,asking how they did it with us kids. "Mostly example" was his reply. That's great, but it doesn't lend itself to repeatability. I wanted to articulate a process to do this that could be repeated by others too, not just by me.

I remember a television commercial from the 1980's in the USA that said "We don't make any of these products, we make them better." To me, leadership is like that. It is not used alone, but rather is a means to an end, making many other human endeavors better when done well.

We've probably all noticed that some people do better at some skills than others, and observers may say they were born with that skill. This is an age old argument with leadership too. Indeed, each of us are endowed with gifts or strengths that impact our degree of efficiency and effectiveness, but skills can be learned. Leadership is a skill, albeit complex, and it too can be learned. Most parents know how to ride a bicycle, so they can teach their child how to ride a bicycle too. However, not all parents have been taught or have developed effective leadership skill. Even those who have may not have an easily articulated process for teaching their posterity or other youth in their sphere of influence. Like many sports fans do not see the thousands of hours of practice by professional athletes, only seeing the crucial performance in public, so most followers of leaders do not typically see the thousands of hours spent by effective leaders in preparation for the crucial public moments.

So I'm starting this iteration with a five-year-old, and an eight year old. We've been through this before with seven older children, but we did it all ad-hoc and by example alone. Sometimes we forgot we were teaching anything at all. Life can be like that sometimes. This time, I'm aiming for some repeatable processes.

My daughter already demonstrates strong persuasive powers as she negotiates for the things that she wants. Her persistence seems beyond what most adults demonstrate even in professional sales. Interestingly, she has to want something to engage her substantial abilities to persuade. When she doesn't want something the behavioral contrast is stark.

My son observes intently and then tries it himself. It's amazing to watch little humans engage in such complex behaviors.

So my goal is to try to teach leadership skills to my children. One obstacle in reaching this goal is that there is not a lot of existing guidance about teaching leadership to children. I was surprised that given all that's written about leadership there wasn't much on teaching it to children that I was able to find.

Another obstacle is that most of my own leadership expertise is tacit knowledge (all in my head) and is so automatic it can be difficult to articulate so it can be codified (written down). I found in my professional life that teaching someone direct supervision was much easier than teaching them how to train other leaders in an indirect supervision role. So I'm trying to pick apart the lessons I found in my own leadership journey and articulate them in a way that is teachable and easily learned and practiced.

The hand-me-down guidance from parents and grand parents is primarily "set the example." And I agree, example is tremendously important in the lives of children. And yet, I want a little more structure in this process to give them the best chance of gaining these important skills.

Although I could have focused only on my own children, I felt it was important to add to the global conversation. So I'll add what I learn along the way. I'm open to input from others who may have already figured parts of this out. My goal is to get this information into the global community so others don't have as hard a time at it.

During my life I've been blessed by and seen so many inspiring examples of caring adults influencing children for good. Sports coaches, teachers, martial arts instructors, Boy Scout leaders, Girl Scout leaders, and interested parties. Some were paid, some were volunteers. What seems common about all of these examples is how much they cared. When I think of a handful of people that really stand out in memory that made a difference in my life, each of them saw in me more than I was at the moment. Each of them intensely wanted to help me do my best, and grow my capacity. They projected higher expectations for me than I had of myself then. They were genuinely pleased when I lived up to their expectations. This caring seems easy as a parent, to see the potential in your own child. But what of those without a biological parent in their lives? Hopefully this effort can help those with different circumstances too.

What about cultural differences?

I will start with our commonality as humans, before addressing differences between various cultures. Perhaps more links us together than separates us, particularly as children.

In my own experience, I've noticed that adult leadership styles differ in Europe, China, Japan and the USA. But this blog is about teaching children leadership skills, so perhaps the fundamentals are more similar than different. I'll add to this idea as I learn more about differences in other countries and cultures. Please share your multicultural perspectives so we can all learn about this.

Although cultural norms vary in many places, I'd argue that the children in these places are already learning how to navigate their cultural norms. The question is how does their local norms impact efforts to teach them leadership?

How young is too young to start?

Years ago the prevailing wisdom was not to teach children a second or third language until they were teenagers or adults because it might confuse them. Since then, the prevailing wisdom pendulum seems to have swung the other direction as further research shows that children are able to learn languages quickly when they're young and that those of us who waited until we were older actually find it more difficult to pick up second or third languages than if we had started as children.

So in a similar thought trajectory, I posit that we should teach children leadership skills. I'll try to explore more thoroughly about the 'how' to do that using this post I welcome comments and feedback.

So what can adults do to help kids learn leadership?

• The two adults with perhaps the greatest impact on children are their mother and their father. Therefore the first schools with the greatest impact on children are at home, for those children in this situation
• Any interested adult can consciously provide specific examples consistently
• Even if the primary adults in the child's life don't feel like they have leadership experience, they can expose the child to other good examples
• Adults can arrange for opportunities for practice leadership skills
• A crucial role for adults is to encourage the child, learning new things may be hard for the child initially. Because success typically begets success, it's important to help them through the difficult beginning periods, rather like riding a bicycle.
• Adults can watch for the child's natural gifts or special talents, as they begin to emerge. Adults can help the children see and apply their own unique strengths. Awareness must come before use and honing.
• Adults can provide feedback when children are in practice situations. They can talk through what happened and help them see the good and what can be tried again in future practices. This type of processing out or learning from practice is important to advancing their skill.
  • Children need models more than critics.
  • If it is hard for you to provide positive feedback, then introduce the child to someone more practiced at this and learn from them.
• Adults can keep a written journal of the child's progress, especially the effective behaviors and positive character traits that emerge. Periodically review their growth as written in the journal and use your insights for encouragement and positive reinforcement.
• The adult can point out how someone in the child's environment behaved effectively with leadership so the child starts to be aware of examples around themselves. Examples are many if they know how to watch for them.
• Oddly enough adults should use poor examples around the child as discussion launch points. For example, "How would you have handled that situation differently?" These 'thought experiments' begin to form their experience base. The child can draw upon this 'experience' later.
  
• Trusted adults can develop role plays and act out different roles, asking the child to influence the outcome. This can provide a safe environment to make mistakes without embarrassment and to get specific targeted feedback.
• Sincerely care about the child, lovingly lead them by the hand and show them how.
• Positively reinforce glimpses of good character.
  
• Tell stories of other leaders. Children love a good story and it provides context for the leader's actions.
• Ask if the child noticed any leaders in entertainment videos or stories. Ask how they noticed. Ask how they (or tell how you) might do things differently.
• Leadership can be hard, so show them that to help a group of people accomplish something is to create. Creation is one of our deepest desires as humans, and it is inherently fulfilling. This is the upside that makes working with the difficult parts of leadership worthwhile.
  
• What else can you think of?
  

What can children pick up about leadership anyway?

Leadership is a big subject so some people may think, "why would you teach kids this anyway, they can't pick it up. It's too complex."

In my view children can pick up the following:

• Behavioral examples - they watch everything
• Character formation - depending on their age, perhaps 80% of "leadership" for children could be regarded as becoming rather than doing. 
• For children that have plenty of exposure to more fully developed adult role models (leaders) as children, these kids seem to have so much the advantage in the adult world to come. People that have become better stand out. Also consider how many organizations of adults are dealing with the lack of such becoming (development) as children? Ethics and emotional intelligence training is a response to something perceived as a cause of performance gaps. Could it be that we didn't all become as developed as we could have as children, and we're still growing and developing as adults?
• "Even a child is known by his doings"¹
• How do we develop character in children?
• They absorb the language and terms used by role models around them - so they can pick up the language of leadership
  
• They already practice influencing peers and adults when they want something
• Their development capacity varies by age or maturity ranges
• Some of the premier leadership academies of the United States start with 17 to 18-year-old youth (United States military Academy at West Point, United States Air Force Academy, United States Naval Academy, and the United States Coast Guard Academy)
• The Boy Scouts start with young people at the age of 12
  
• News reports seem to show that street gangs start with young people too, although the documentaries on gang life show the leadership styles tend towards coercion and force instead of invitation and choice.
• They do not need positional authority to begin learning about and practicing the art of influence (leadership). Those that rely too much on positional power are less effective leaders anyway.
  

These opinions are based on experience rearing many children, not empirical studies. I suspect each of these assertions could be verified later by scientific studies should someone determine to do so.

¹ Proverbs 20:11 (King James Version)

Children can learn leadership

We teach other skills like gymnastics to children. Leadership skills will stay with them long beyond their teens and twenties.