Boy Scouts, Servant Leadership, and Social Change Model

Boy Scouts as a Community Partner

The element of my adult life that most directly incorporates service to the community is my work with the Boy Scouts of America. Most people associate the Boy Scouts with boys doing service projects, but the organization also requires significant adult volunteer participation. While boys performing service projects is a central feature of Scouting, the reality is that the Boy Scouts could not function without adult volunteers.

Boy Scouts of America can be considered a true community partner because it is one of the nation's largest youth-oriented organizations. The Boy Scouts works to help boys develop into strong young men by concentrating on character development. They try to help young boys develop a sense of responsibility, promote good citizenship, and encourage physical fitness. Beyond individual development, the Boy Scouts are involved with the community on multiple levels. On national holidays, some troops sell and place flags at residences and businesses. To earn the rank of Eagle Scout, boys must complete community service projects. Depending on the troop, Boy Scouts might work with Habitat for Humanity, Earth Day organizations, Meals on Wheels, or other community charities throughout the year.

Boy Scouts also teaches boys respect for the land — not only how to camp, but how to interact with nature in a way that preserves it for future generations. Taken as a whole, with its emphasis on giving to the community and preserving it for those who come after, it is clear that the Boy Scouts plays a meaningful role in community life.

Because of its deep interaction with the community, the Boy Scouts provides excellent opportunities — for both boys and adult volunteers — to practice servant leadership. Boy Scouts are taught to be obedient, and obedience is one of the less-discussed but critically important aspects of servant leadership.

Servant Leadership in the Scout Context

One reason the Boy Scouts provides a strong environment for servant leaders is its emphasis on religion. It would be inaccurate to describe the Boy Scouts as a Christian organization, since it welcomes boys from all faith backgrounds. However, it is accurate to say that it is a religious organization: the Boy Scouts stresses the importance of God in everyday life and requires that Scouts be reverent. Given that servant leadership has historically been characterized in religious circles, and that some of the most recognized examples of servant leadership carry a religious context, the organization's emphasis on reverence helps explain why it has been so effective in developing boys into servant leaders.

As a parent, I have been involved in a variety of volunteer roles with the Boy Scouts. In the past, I served as a den leader of a Tiger Scout troop. I currently have a seven-year-old son who is a Cub Scout, and while I am no longer a troop leader, I help out at weekly events and volunteer at the various special events the boys participate in throughout the year.

Personal Volunteer Roles and Experiences

The Boy Scouts place great emphasis on the outdoors, and much of my volunteer activity has involved outdoor activities and camping trips. Each outdoor activity offers a distinct opportunity for adult involvement. A simple canoeing trip, for example, requires planning a location, ensuring the site is reserved or otherwise available, confirming adequate supplies, verifying the correct adult-to-child ratio, and arranging for a first-aid trained adult to be present. Even when acting in the role of a parent-volunteer, this participation has required a significant investment of time and energy. As a troop leader, the ultimate responsibility for the success of each venture — and for the safety of the boys — rested with me, so I spent additional time not only setting up events, but ensuring they would be safe.

I have also volunteered at the Pinewood Derby. To help conduct the derby, I completed a training course covering its origins and purposes, how to plan and organize it, and how to run the event itself. The Pinewood Derby is interesting because it differs from many traditional Boy Scout activities in that the boys compete against one another. Although the Boy Scouts emphasize doing one's personal best, this competitive event builds character by encouraging boys to create something of their own, strengthens family bonds because boys work with an adult partner (usually a parent) to build their vehicle, and teaches sportsmanship as the boys race against each other and cheer on their pack mates through eliminations and victories.

I particularly enjoyed working on this project because so many aspects of adult life are simultaneously competitive and cooperative — just like the Pinewood Derby — and I felt it helped prepare boys for that reality. One of the most difficult things for young people to learn is how to be competitive with grace, and without animosity toward the people they are competing against. In the increasingly cutthroat atmosphere of children's sports and other youth competitions, very few adults seem willing to model friendly competition; instead, many seem intent on teaching children that winning at any cost is what matters most.

The values and skills that have initiated and sustained my service are rooted in my relationship with my child. While people can certainly connect with their community without having children, for me, becoming a parent reinforced the sense that I am part of a larger community. Looking at the Social Change Model, the concept of citizenship refers to "active community participation as a result of a sense of responsibility to the communities in which people live" (Komives & Wagner, 2009). My sense of responsibility began with my responsibility to my child: if I wanted him to have the experiences of a full childhood, I would have to do my part to help provide those experiences.

As I became more involved with Boy Scouts, I came to realize that many children lack parents who are able or willing to devote time to them, and that my sense of obligation extended to those children as well. Rather than resent the parents who seemed unwilling to shoulder their share of the troop's work, I tried to embrace the idea that I was there to help all the children, not only my own. This shift in perspective, I believe, also helped develop my group values of collaboration and common purpose.

Applying the Social Change Model

I still find Robert Greenleaf's description of the servant leader to be the most concise and useful framework available. Greenleaf stresses how important empathy is to the servant leader (Greenleaf, 2002). When I first began working with people, I concentrated on ideals and found myself frustrated when people failed to meet my expectations. I also found that my plans did not work as intended, because I was planning for idyllic scenarios rather than real ones. The reality is that people are not perfect, and leaders who wait for ideal conditions or ideal people find themselves with no one to lead. Rather than wait for the ideal, servant leaders are expected to accept people as they are and work within the limitations of human imperfection (Greenleaf, 2002). Empathy is critical in exactly those moments. Moreover, I believe that empathy helps a leader build community, and community-building is another area I consider a strength.

Part of being empathetic is accepting that people will not always meet their promises and obligations. Sometimes this failure is unintentional — a person experiences a death, illness, or other emergency. Understanding those circumstances was always easy for me. At other times, however, the failure seems to result from poor planning on the part of the promisor, creating more work for everyone who relied on them. Learning to be empathetic not only helped me deal with those situations when they arose, but also taught me to prepare backup plans in the event that someone was unable to fulfill their promised role.

While Boy Scouts has helped develop my empathy and planning ability, I know that I continue to struggle with my ability to frame concepts for a group. Servant leadership is not about asserting power; it is about developing rightful authority. Rather than forcing a group to do a leader's bidding, the servant leader's role is to persuade people to follow a proposed path — a path that, because the servant leader has listened to the group, respected all members, and considered short- and long-term consequences, should genuinely be the best one for the group. Of course, that path may not appear optimal to the group because of competing interests, short-term thinking, or the fact that every plan involves trade-offs. A servant leader's job is to show the group why a certain course of action is the best available option.

To do this effectively, a servant leader must be able to explain and define proposed actions clearly, along with the supporting reasons for them. I am not consistently good at putting my thoughts into words. As a result, in my role as troop leader, I found that on more than one occasion the troop made a group decision that was less than optimal, due to a lack of understanding about all available alternatives. To grow as a leader, I need to not only visualize solutions, but also articulate them clearly to others in the group.