Back to Gilwell: Rediscovering What Scouting Taught Me

This past weekend, I completed the first of my two Wood Badge weekends, Scouting America’s premier leadership training for adults.

Before signing up, I honestly didn’t know much about Wood Badge. I knew my mom had completed it many years ago, that she was a Buffalo, and, according to her, the Buffaloes were the best.

So there was something extra special about following in her footsteps and experiencing a Scouting tradition that had been part of her own Scouting journey.

As I’ve gotten more involved in Scouting again over the past few years, I’ve started to realize just how much I learned from Scouting as a kid without realizing I was learning it at the time.

Wood Badge reinforced that for me.

Scouting and Leadership

Throughout the weekend, we worked with leadership concepts that I’ve used throughout my professional career.

We spent time on Tuckman’s Stages of Team Development: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. We explored DISC and how different communication and behavioral styles affect the way people work together. We also spent time developing vision, mission, and values.

These aren’t just Scouting concepts. They’re things I’ve used when building teams, developing products, leading organizations, and working with people throughout my career.

But I didn’t learn leadership for the first time when I became a manager.

Looking back, much of the foundation was already being built when I was a Scout.

I was learning how to work as part of a team. How to lead people who were different from me. How to solve problems when things didn’t go according to plan. How to take responsibility. How to serve others. How to lead, and just as importantly, how to follow.

At the time, I was probably more focused on the camping trip, earning the next merit badge, or whatever adventure was coming next. I didn’t realize those experiences were teaching me skills I would use decades later.

Why Scouting Means So Much to Me

That realization is one of the reasons Scouting has come to mean even more to me as I’ve gotten involved again as an adult.

Scouting certainly teaches outdoor skills, but camping, hiking, knots, and merit badges are really the vehicle for something much bigger.

Scouts learn leadership by actually leading. They learn teamwork by being part of a patrol. They learn responsibility because other people are counting on them. They make decisions, make mistakes, figure things out, and try again.

Often, they’re learning without realizing just how much they’re learning.

I know I was.

Wood Badge gave me an opportunity to look at many of those same lessons through an adult leadership lens. More than anything, the weekend confirmed why Scouting continues to mean so much to me and why I believe so strongly in what it can do for young people.

Now I have one more Wood Badge weekend ahead of me, followed by the work of putting what I’ve learned into practice.

And despite everything my mom taught me about the superiority of Buffaloes, I’m a Bobwhite.

Any other Bobwhites out there?

“Back to Gilwell…” 🎶