For almost 10 years now, I was active in Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America) and had an experience like no other. It is where I learned how to be a cheerful servant leader, give back to my community, make connections, create visions and goals, and improvise solutions. As I slowly become less involved in Scouting and more involved with community organizations as I grow older, I am reminded of the importance of these lessons through my involvement in the community. I wanted to take some time and reflect on these lessons and how I apply them in new ways. So, here are some lessons I’ve learned and how they apply in the real world.
Be Prepared
“Be Prepared” is the Scout Motto and for a very good reason: we should be prepared for anything life can throw at us. It requires that we think ahead of anything that could go wrong and mitigate the consequences. Even for circumstances that I never saw coming, I was able to adapt and improvise thanks to my preparations for other situations.
One of my favorite stories of being prepared was in 2024. During this time, I was working at Owasippe Scout Reservation on the commissioner crew. The full list of my responsibilities was lengthy but it boils down to being an extra pair of hands that can handle situations and needs as they come up. There was a heavy storm one night that knocked our power out. None of the key members were on site yet as they had to clear the roads from debris coming into camp. Without any of our key staff, I took the initiative to try and manage the situation and ensure that all of our immediate needs were met. Our dining hall staff were able to grab some lanterns to serve food with while I directed leaders to go inside our dining hall and relax while we try to figure everything out. It was obvious that the power would not be coming on any time soon so we would have to make the best of the situation.
Eventually, our Camp Director made it on site and we were able to use some battery powered lights to keep the show going. It was a really unique experience and most of our campers had no problems with there being no lights or fans that day. We kept the morale and enthusiasm high and ensured any unexpected issue was taken care of.
Normally, this is where the story would end. However, the power company had no idea when the lights would come back on. It took almost 4 days for the power to be restored. This is where extra preparation came in handy. I always keep a few extra lights and portable power banks charged throughout my gear and car. Because of this, I was able to stay somewhat connected and bright through it all. I never planned for a four day power outage, but I was able to overcome the challenge because I was prepared for other events.
Being prepared for many different scenarios and being able to adapt and improvise to new ones enabled me to host community events through storms, accidents, and missing equipment. It is a skill that I never take for granted.
Visions, SMART Goals, and Continued Improvement
Back in 2017, I was inducted into Scouting’s National Honor Society, the Order of the Arrow (OA). The OA focuses on developing cheerful servant leaders through giving service back to camp and enabling youth to truly take charge of the program. The important detail is that everything the OA does is planned, organized, and executed by the youth under the guidance of adult advisers. By design, the advisers do very little outside of ensuring all relevant rules are being followed and guiding their youth in a productive path. This creates an environment where it truly is youth ran and this includes defining our vision and goals for a year.
I served in a wide variety of positions in the OA where I had tough conversations with my fellow youth and advisers with respect to what we needed to do. After COVID, we had to find ways to bring people back into the program and rebuild ourselves a bit. We talked about everything from the root causes of our issues, where we saw ourselves in the future, what areas we have room for improvement, and how to create the best program possible for the youth that we serve. We set visions and made SMART Goals to reach that vision. Every time we needed to make a decision, we looked towards our vision and goals to ensure we were on the right track.
In my own involvement in college, I’ve seen student leaders feel lost because they are not sure what to do as a leader of an organization. Often times, they do not have a vision for what they want the org to look like and will throw ideas at the wall to see what sticks. Now, nothing is wrong with throwing ideas and seeing what sticks. However, it should be done with a particular goal in mind. It is hard to determine if an event is a good idea if you do not know what you are trying to achieve. Defining a vision for an organization enables you to make relevant goals and those goals help guide you to a strong course of action.
There was also this philosophy of continued improvement that I picked up from one of my advisers. To me, it means that no matter how successful an event is, there is always room to improve. The planning process, the execution, or the event material itself all have room for improvement. Even when an event goes extremely well, there is room to make it even better by finding more effective ways to advertise, creating more streamlined planning meetings, or updating the material to be more engaging for attendees.
Now, this is not the same mentality as a perfectionist. I do not believe that everything has to be perfect for something to be very successful. Expecting everything to go perfectly can cause a lot of stress and pressure on leaders. In fact, I believe that expecting something to go wrong and being prepared is a healthy mindset as it allows you to adapt to the situation instead of worrying about the lack of perfection. Perfection is not an attainable goal to reach. While we should strive to always be better and work on continually improving, we should not expect to be perfect. We should expect to be human and treat ourselves as such.
There is No Such Thing as Failure
When talking about success, we can define it in many different ways. Maybe we value the number of people that attended an event. Maybe we value the grade from an assignment. Maybe we value a certain rating or review. We use these metrics to try and quantify our success and failures. One philosophy that I developed in Scouting is that there is no such thing as failure. What I mean by this is that our definition of success is allowed to constantly change as your goals and activities develop. Sometimes an event is rained out and the planned swimming competition was not able to happen. Does that mean it was a failure? No, of course not. As the situation develops, we are allowed to change how we measure success. In this case, we can measure it by how we handled the weather and kept the event going.
My baseline for success is that at least one person enjoys an event OR you learned something and can find a way to continually improve your process. Learning is a form of success and we should celebrate that. Acknowledge the shortcomings, but do not treat them as failures. Treat them as opportunities to grow, improve, and reflect.
Now it is true that events can be not as successful as one would have hoped, but that still does not make it a failure. The only true failure is when no one gains anything positive and no one grows from the experience. I have yet to see this happen in even the most gloomy of circumstances.
The idea that there is no such thing as failure changed how I viewed less than desirable outcomes. Instead of beating myself up or blaming everyone else, I started to see room to grow and continually improve. The right mindset is just as important as any vision or goal you might have.
Love One Another
The phrase “love one another” has particular significance in the OA for very complex reasons that I will not go into here. But I think it does a great job of encapsulating what a great leader should strive to do. Love one another.
Why does this matter in the real world? Simply put, we are all human. We have our own struggles, our own triumphs, our own experiences, and our own passions in life. It is impossible to truly understand every aspect of another person and what they might be going through. We are all unique and that uniqueness is something that should be celebrated. Instead of judging one another for our differences and spreading negativity, we should love one another and try to understand one another.
As a leader, I keep this phrase in mind when working with others. When someone is late, busy, or otherwise having a bad day, I try to understand why that is and show some empathy. This is not an excuse for negative behavior, but rather an understanding that life happens and that is okay. Treating someone kindly during a rough time can make all the difference in the world.
To me, this also means keeping an open ear when people need a place to vent their frustrations or struggles without any judgement. I am but one human and can not fully understand what someone else is going through in life. But I can show empathy. I can show that I care and offer to help however I can. Sometimes just being there can help someone in ways I can never fully understand.
There is enough hate and judgement in this world. It can often feel like our differences divide us. I chose to believe that our differences can unite us if we keep our ears open and simply love one another.