connecting the theoretical and practical dots of leadership

Last weekend was our first ever "Suriviorman Weekend" for the Boy Scout troop. The wilderness survival event was inspired by the current television shows: Survivorman and Man vs Wild. It was an excellent success.

For our purposes the weekend was a scenario-based competition between patrols. We scored them on obvious categories such as shelter, food, and fire as well as less obvious ones like morale and teamwork.

When judging morale and teamwork, we were looking to see how a group of Scouts worked together. Did they look after each other and cooperate or did they bicker, fight, and hassle one another? Were they able to get done work quickly by coordinating tasks or was everyone fending for themselves? Reflecting now on the weekend, the judges saw an array of responses. One patrol managed to delegate responsibilities. Another did not fare as well since the oldest boys performed all the work leaving the youngest underutilized and bored.

It dawned on me while watching (from afar) these patrols work that we were witnessing differing leadership styles immerge on their own. Some Scouts were content to do all the work at the cost of morale and efficiency. Others had higher performance and were able to delegate, but required less than pleasant tones to motivate others.

So I've been considering the success of the weekend and what I witnessed. I was trying to diagnose how some patrols did better than others and I came across this article at Dumb Little Man. It was while reading the article that I had an epiphany - I understand what had happened: the Scouts were concentrating more on the tasks at hand than the bigger picture of wilderness  survival.

Our event lacked the emotional connection that would inspire Scouts to be good leaders. When the fire competition began, Scouts decided the best way to win that competition. They then choose the best food cooking methods that they believed would earn them the most points. The underlying problem is that there was no incentive to be a good leader - just a good enough leader.

True survival situations require the seven tips as discussed in the article. Morale will be affected by how well the leader motivates and inspires others to strive toward goals. And morale is one hell of an ally in tough situations - even more so than dry socks!

So how do you bridge the gap? I wish I knew! I can't drop the Scouts in a jungle just to see them actually have to work together (although that would be amusing). I think you can start with having a healthy discussion about the good and bad things that happened.

What do you think? How do you bring the emotional desire to perform good, high-leveled leadership to an event?