Scoutmastership, Leadership, Management

Whenever I type the word 'scoutmastership' my eternally faithful spell check underlines it in red. My best guess is that the term was coined by Baden Powell  in the title of his booklet 'Aids to Scoutmastership'. Dictionaries don't recognize the word. Scoutmastership embodies an important concept that differentiates the work of Scouting in general and Scoutmasters in particular from other forms of leadership, administration and management.

Scoutmasters may find inspiration and practical advice in the study of business management concepts and adapt them to the unique practice of Scoutmastership. As Scoutmasters we are not responsible for the production of a product or the management of easily quantified numerical goals. Nor are we merely charged with administering a program  or maintaining a  set of standards.

To be sure Scoutmastership has elements of teaching, parenting, mentoring, leading managing and administering yet it defies the definition of any single field. The term "Scoutmastership" properly sets the role apart as a unique endeavor. Scoutmasters  mentor Scouts through a variety of experiences in such a way that they learn for themselves to weave together the various influences of their lives into a cohesive whole. We are given more general inspiration than specific direction - and purposefully so - because each one of us will have a slightly different way of carrying out the work.

A great revelation is the discovery that there is no universally adaptable step-by-step plan for Scouting but rather well expressed yet potentially frustrating generalizations. Is every Eagle Scout identical in character and deportment to all others? Does every Scout Troop operate under a universal specific method of administration? Is every Scout equally talented? Do they all share identical dispositions?

Policies and procedures are our tools, not our masters. Should we observe them? Certainly. But we must not mistake them as the game itself - they are merely the rules we play by. Imagine a sport  devoid of rules or a field with no players; both equally joyless and meaningless.

To build on a thought expressed by Carl Schurz:

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.

I think of a long night on the Chesapeake Bay steering a replica of a seventeenth century ship.
Unlike the steering wheel of a car or the sophisticated controls of a modern vessel the ship was equipped with a primitive device attached to the rudder called a whipstave. The steersman stands in a tiny "doghouse" on the after deck with no view of the water at all much less over the bow ahead. Directions must be relayed by an officer conning the ship above the doghouse to the steersman who, watching the the compass, swings the whipstave to adjust the course. It is not an easy system, nor one that lends itself to pinpoint accuracy. Staying on course  is not following a  line; it is occupying a position within a wide path. Ships don't respond quickly, the con must anticipate adjustments to the course far ahead accounting for the currents, winds  and vagarious nature of the sea. A skilled mariner does not fight with the sea; he learns to integrate them into the art of steering the ship.

Scouting is a wide path with plenty of room for course correction and plenty of allowance for leeway. Scoutmastership is the job not so much of directing as coaxing; not so much arriving as traveling; achieving as striving. Scoutmastership integrates the influences of society, family, school, church to form decent human beings while they are in the chaotic throes of "finding themselves".  We are not working towards goals, we are shaping a destinies.

Associated posts at Scoutmaster
Scoutmaster's Mission Statement
Promises to Keep
Taking Direction from Youth Leadership