Skills of Leadership

Steps to improving leadership skills

Work through the following steps to ensure that you use PE and school sport to make a real
difference to pupils leadership skills in your school. The PE and school sport strategies you use
will be most effective when they form part of a whole school approach to improving leadership
skills. All staff, helpers and pupils need to know and understand what leadership roles,
responsibilities and skills are expected of pupils.

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Know where you are and what you want to achieve

Getting and Giving

Information

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Getting and Giving Information is probably the #1

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competency required of leaders. If you cannot

communicate effectively, then no other leadership
skill will compensate for this lack. First and
foremost, you must be able to exchange information effectively and accurately.

There are three distinct aspects to communication, or getting and getting information: Getting it,
retrieving it, and giving it.

Getting Information
When getting or receiving information, you may be watching for a variety of clues to gather
meaning: not only verbal or written information, but nonverbal behavior as well. If you are not
careful, facts will be forgotten or distorted. This is because both the individual sending and the
person receiving the information may unintentionally obscure the message.
There are two ways you can insure that the information you receive will not be forgotten or
distorted:

Take notes. Always write down key information received.

Repeat back what you think you heard the person say.

While you may think you understand what you think you heard, you may in fact have gotten it
totally wrong. Clarify and verify! In a communication exchange, the sender controls what and
how is said, or the content of the message. The recipient controls what is heard and the feedback
given.
To encourage good communication, you need to encourage others to speak freely.

Show interest by leaning forward, paying attention, nodding in agreement, taking notes, and so
forth.

Greet new ideas with interest.

Give the individual your undivided attention.

Maintain eye contact.

Use the individual's name.

Smile, relax, and be friendly.

Retrieving Information
Information received may have to be recalled at a later time. There are many different ways to
store and retrieve information. Today, we naturally think of computers as a means for storing and
retrieving information. The medium is not as important as what your write and how you store the
information. You can employ a variety of methods to help you remember details, including notetaking, repeating back, memorization, and mnemonic devices.

Giving Information
When giving information, use all five senses whenever possible. In addition,

Speak clearly.

Use language that everyone understands.

Vary your tone and pace.

Move from the general to the specific.

Use visuals charts, maps. and diagrams.

Eyeball the listener.

Encourage two-way flowask questions and get them asking questions of you. Don't pass
judgement on the question or the questioner. Use feedback and reflective listening to keep your
verbal and non-verbal communication in sync. Take notes of the main ideas and review your
notes soon afterwards to make sure they continue to make sense.

Understanding the Needs and

Characteristics of the Group

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When you come to camp, even if you come with

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friends, you'll be put into a group where you won't

know anyone. Sound a little bit scarey? There's a
reason for it!
Everyone carries with them a little bit of history. At White Stag, none of that matters. Everyone
has the same advantage and opportunities to be the best person they can be. There are no preconceptions or limitations on what you can accomplish.

What makes others tick

Everyone gets to learn about everyone else, their needs, their characteristics, what makes them
"tick." We learn what excites people, what motivates them, what they need to succeed, and how
to support and grow the group. We learn about how groups come together and commit to
achieving tough goals.

As your group plans and carries out activities, you learn more about yourself, your individual
needs and characteristics. You learn how to balance individual needs against those of the entire
group.
To understand others, we must first understand ourselves. This understanding can come naturally
as we grow, and at White Stag we believe in giving indivdiuals direct encouragement to discover
and improve on their skills and abilities.

Learn and grow as a person and with the

group
Every group member needs to learn other members' needs and characteristics. Throughout life,
as any group forms, members informally assess others' characteristics and needs. We bring the
process out of the closet and use it to help everyone grow and prosper. We teach how to learn
about and assess your own and other group members needs and characteristics in an open,
trusting environment via specific learning activities and exercises.
Everyone is accepted and their individual differences are valued, for the differences contribute to
an environment calculated to encourage growth.

Knowing and Understanding

Resources of the Group

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Sounds like a mouthful, and it is. "Resources of

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the Group." What are those?

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That's exactly where we want you to start thinking.

Because we believe an imaginative leader thinks
openly and creatively about resources. They aren't just limited to the physical resources, but
include people's skills, attitudes, background.
We help individuals learn about member's backgrounds and experiences is an effective technique
for bringing a group together and creating commitment to common goals. We teach leaders that
the group's ability to recognize and utilized diverse resources tremendously affects what the

group can accomplish. When you use the group's resources, you can involve more people in
active leadership by giving each a part according to his or her resources.
All groups go through the process of uncovering their resources. It's often informal and unstated.
We help individuals improve as leaders by bringing this skills to the forefront.

Helping members learn about group resources

This competency enhances the accidental, serendipitous encounter. It provides an informal but
recognized stage where group leaders and members can learn about more each other. Our
process increases the intensity of the exchanges, promoting honesty and trust. It accelerates the
rate at which the group begins to coalesce and develop commitment to a common purpose.
Greater productivity and increased quality are the results.
As a leader, it is a good idea to introduce activities that help the individuals in the group to
become acquainted with one another's skills, knowledge, and abilities. Showing off a school
transcript or resume is not what we mean. We challenge individuals and the group to draw on
each other for resources and assistance. In this way they get a hands-on experience about exactly
what resources are and how to use them!

Controlling the Group

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A group exists for a purpose. Control is the throttle

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on the group's enginethe energy that gives it

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direction. As a leader exerts control, he balances

getting the job done and keeping the team
together.
To effectively control the team, a leader:
1. Sets the pace. The most effective leader is out in front, demonstrating their willingness
to do anything asked of team members. An effective leaders always sets an excellent
example.
2. Observes. Observes the team, communicates with the members, is available, but does
not dominate. Give suggestions for improvement rather than orders.

3. Instructs. Communicate clearly. As a Manager of Learning, allow members to use their

own initiative. Correct mistakes with respect and without passing judgement. If the work
is going well, do not intrude. If required, provide direct assistance and additonal
instruction.
4. Counsels. Be ready to help individuals with specific needs. Encourages all members to
give their best.
5. Inspects. Keeps a positive attitude and does not criticize. Praises good work, quietly
offers suggestions to correct errors.
6. Reacts. Recognizes that responsibility for failure is on the leader, while the
responsibility for success rests on the memers. Remains humble and continually strives
to serve the team.

Controlling Team Performance is a close companion of the competency Setting the Example.
Coordinating individual efforts for collective purpose is externally and internally controlledby
the leader and each individual. Setting the Example is a personal, internal manner of control that
we hope others will model (when it's positive and appropriate).
Control is most often an overt behavior of the leader. There are specific actions a leader can take
to exert influence over a team. The leader in a team deploys the people in his patrol in a manner
to promote control, breaking up destructive cliques, to encourage greater participation, etc. He
stands at certain times to maintain or assert control. He counsels an individual to help him "set a
better example."

Counseling

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Counseling is a private talk with someone that

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helps the individual with a personal problem.

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Takes away minor aches and painscommon

sense stuff.

What to do until the doctor arriveshelp the person tell you "where it hurts" and send for help.

As a leader, people will come to you with problems. Because you are a leader, you will spot
people with problems. You can't turn them away or just let them suffer, because the ignored
problem, if serious, will almost inevitably become a group problem.
Counseling is considered pretty difficult. Professional counselors, like lawyers, bankers,
clergymen, vocational counselors, teachers, psychiatrists and others, sometimes spend years

learning how to counsel in their fields. People often pay large amounts of money to be
counseled.
Why should leaders learn to counsel? Why should a team leader, for instance, need to know how
to counsel? Why is it considered one of the competencies a leader ought to know?

Because everyone has challenges or problems from time to time.

Because as an effective leader, individuals will grow to respect you. They will seek you out and
ask for counsel from you.

Counseling is sometimes just another word for listening. When troubled, many times it helps
the individual to just talk it out, to voice their concerns and express whats troubling them. Just
having their worries or problems heard by another gives the person a sense that his or her
problems are legitimate, thus perhaps increasing their self-esteem and their feelings of adequacy
in handling the situation.

Setting the Example

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As a leader, Setting the Example means that your

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public and private lives are transparent and

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unified. Since we define leadership as a property

of the group, and at its essence the act of
influencing a group to achieve its goals, anyone is
by definition a leader. Setting the Example is one way all members can influence the group.
While a very simple competency on the face of it, none is more important. Fail to demonstrate
this competency to members of your group, and you are doomed to negative results. No matter
how good a line you talk, if you dont match it with your walk, you will earn no respect and find
it increasingly difficult to get the group to work with you.
Setting the Example is where your backbone shows. If you have character, if your character has
integritythat is, if who you are in public is the same person you are in privateyou will
accomplish far more than you might imagine possible. For this kind of leader, as long as he takes
care of his followers needs, enjoys their respect, loyalty, and even love.

It may be more difficult under some circumstances to set a positive example, but that doesn't stop
you! Setting the Example is where your backbone shows. If you have character, if your character
has integrity--that is, if who you are on the outside is lined up with who you are on the inside-you will accomplish far more than you might imagine possible. For this kind of leader, as long as
he takes care of his follower's needs, enjoys their respect, loyalty, and even love.
If you fail to set the example, why should you expect group members to do any better? To help
keep the group together and get the job done, everything you do and say should line up with the
best possible examples of leadership. When you set the example, you help facilitate the results
you want as a leader.

Representing the Group

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Representing the Group is accurately

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communicating to non-group members the sum of

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group members' feelings, ideas, etc., and vice

versa. A leader must represent his team on a great
variety of issues. Some of these issues and the
need for a decision representing group interests will be known in advance; others will not be.
Under any circumstances, to faithfully represent the group, you must:

Fully understand the nature of the problem.

Know how the decision (if any) was reached and be able to communicate it to others.

Accurately and responsibly communicate from and back to the original group.

Realize that other groups may derive their entire picture of another group through you, the
representative. You must be consistent, possess integrity, and be fair to all parties.

Representing the Group is more an art than an exact science. When the requirement to represent
a group regarding a specific issue is known beforehand, then the entire representation issue is
much more manageable. It's an issue requiring decision-making skill.
If you are effective at representing your group, you will positively influence their attitude,
motivation, and enthusiasm. They will come to feel that what they think matters, that the ideas
they develop are good, and that they are making a positive contribution to the entire group.

Planning
Planning as an ongoing process, where a decision

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at each step helps clarify your choices in the next

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step. You can use the suggested questions after

each step to help define the details for each task.

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The effective use of planning will do more than

any other competency to advance both getting the job done and keeping the group together. It is
an umbrella competency in its effect on a variety of issues. Planning is useful both in group
situations and one-on-one.
Planning is a core competency. It offers a general conceptual framework to integrate a variety
of related skills, including problem-solving, scheduling, time management, performance
appraisal, negotiation, and conflict resolution.
Along with Evaluation and Manager of Learning, Planning is one of the most critical and
complex competencies that you can master. Skilled use of this competency helps you get the job
done and keep the group together in all kinds of situations.

The Goal of Planning

The goal of planning is to improve the quality of the decisions made and the results achieved. By
following a proven planning structure, you can improve the number and quality of options
available to you at each step of the process. This produces improved outcomes. When you
engage in a structured decision-making process, you are more confident about the information
you gather and the decision you make based on that information. Your clarity of judgment is
improved and can make firm decisions with fewer chances that you will second-guess yourself
later on.

About Problem-Solving
Problem-Solving has six "phases":

The cyclical planning procedure.

1. Consider the Task

The purpose of the first step of Planning, consider the task, is to:

Reach group agreement on the nature of the task and commitment to resolve
it.

Identify internal and external constraints and support for the issue.

2. Analysis

The purpose of the second step of Planning, consider the resources, is to determine
the time, physical, and human resources available to the group.

3. Generate Alternatives

The purpose of the third step of Planning, consider the alternatives, is to:

Examine as many alternative solutions or responses to a problem or situation

as possible.

Create a variety of ideas and systematically evaluate them.

Gain input from all team members and their commitment to an eventual
solution.

4. Implementation

The purpose of the fifth step of Planning, make a decision, is to:

Obtain members commitment to a solution.

Analyze all of the information gathered and choose the best solution.

5. Evaluation and feedback

The purpose of the fifth step of Planning, evaluation, is to look at what happened
and pass on what we learned to our group and to other groups.

Problem-solving includes:

Using specified skills to identify the nature of a given situation or task.

Alternative methods for determining the appropriate solution

Applying guidelines for analyzing a task or problem in order to solve it.

Along with Evaluation and Manager of Learning, this competency is one of the most critical and
complex in leadership development. Skilled use of this competency positively influences the
leader's ability to get the job done and keep the group together in all kinds of situations.

Evaluation

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Evaluation is the constant companion of the White

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strive to improve ourselves, so we continually

evaluate how we are doing. We call this the
"Evaluation Attitude." This attitude, it turns out, is
one of the five founding principles of the White Stag program.
In almost any situation, except when responding to purely mechanical systems, we must consider
the task and the people.

About Evaluation
Ask a Patrol Member Development candidate at the end of the summer camp, "When do you
evaluate?" and he'll tell you, "Always."
Ask another candidate from Patrol Leader Development "what do you look for when you
evaluate?" and he'll say, "The strong and the weak points, possible improvements, and things to
keep."
Ask a third candidate, a young woman from Troop Leader Development, bowed under a large
pack, "What is evaluation?" and he'll tell you everything the others have said and add, "We
evaluate how well the group is keeping itself together and how well we're getting the job done."

Evaluation is a continual process, either informal or formal, of judging a situation against a

standard.
Evaluation is, in essence, two things:

An attitude of continuous striving for higher goals.

A process for judging an individual's or group's completion of a task against previously identified
standards.

Our desire is to improve our evaluation skills so that we evaluate in the same manner a eagle
soars on the winds: constantly testing, consciously and unconsciously, wind current, flow, our
altitude, strength, time, direction, position relative to our target, etc., all the elements that affect
our reaching and surpassing the next mountain peak.

Sharing Leadership

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Shared problem-solving and decision-making is an

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increasingly prevalent aspect of successful

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management and leadership worldwide. This is

because competitive, authortarian styles of
leadership are less and less responsive to the
complex challenges facing society today.
The White Stag program has since 1958 described five styles of leadership: Telling, Selling,
Consulting, Joining (or consensus). These styles of leadership are appropriate depending on the task,
the situation, and the group, as illustrated in the diagrma below.

Sharing Leadership eadership encourages the

leader to select an appropriate style of
leadership based on the task, the situation,
and the group relationship.

Generally, less experienced or insecure leaders will tend to lean on the more authoritarian types of
leadership because they desire the role and title of leader to bolster their self-esteem, and they lack
confidence in their skills. Talented, mature leaders employ the most appropriate style based on the
context. The styles are easily viewed as being most to least authoritarian.
A way of assessing the desirability of a leadership style or the need for sharing leadership with the
team is to consider both the groups' short- and long-range goals. Effective, enlightened, unselfish
leaders true servants of the group are not reluctant to encourage group participation and
ownership of a decision.
Through all leadership situations, you must find a style of leadership most suited to the occasion that
balances your own maturity and capabilities and the group's maturity and ability.

The leader's and the group's maturity, the short- and long-term
goals, along with contextual dynamics, further influence the style
of leadership appropriate to the occasion.

In any situation, you must consider the appropriateness of each style relative to the forces generated
by the situation and from within the group. For example, the more long-range the goal, the more you
need the participation of every member in group decisions and their commitment to achieving the
goal. On the other hand, emergency situations do not lend themselves to consultation or delegation.

Managing of Learning

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Some people want to know why this skill is called

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"Manager of Learning" and not "Effective

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Teaching". Effective Teaching is a term coined the

National Boy Scouts of America. The phrase
Manager of Learning was defined by Bla
Bnthy, who conceived of the eleven leadership skills. We believe a Manager of Learning is not
simply a teacher. Teaching connotes activities too typically requiring a lecture hall and a large

number of desks. The phrase manager of learning is carefully chosen. The emphasis is on
learning, not on what the instructor teaches. Your job, as a manager of learning, is to help the
participants to become more effective leaders.

The Emphasis is on Learning

Managers of learning are different from "teachers" or "instructors." They know that people learn
as individuals, not as a class or group. They know each individual is important; therefore, each
individual leader must learn or all will receive an inferior program. Whoever accepts the
responsibility for managing learning must use unusual techniques to get unusual results.

A Learning Discovery Process

The Manager of Learning (sometimes known as "Effective Teaching") competency is more
complex than most leadership competencies. In a nutshell, Manager of Learning describes a
system for exposing learners to the need to know and involving them in their own learning. We
choose to continue to name the competency Manager of Learning rather than Effective Teaching
because we believe the focus is always on the participants' learning, not the teacher's teaching.
Manager of Learning has four steps:
1. Guided Discovery
2. Teach/Learn
3. Application
4. Evaluation

Improving Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge

By learning, we mean the gaining of knowledge, the improvement of skills, or the development
of attitudes in a certain area. Sometimes this is abbreviated to "KSA." Attitudes are obviously
more important than skills or knowledge after all, what is the barber going to do with that
razor? it might be better to turn it around to ASK! And it happens that asking, rather than
telling, is perhaps the main difference between a teacher and a manager of learning. We ask,
because maybe the learner already knows.
Maybe they know but haven't realized that it applies in this situation. Or maybe they don't know
they don't know. So we ask him, first.This asking comprises the first of the four steps of manager

of learning, the Guided Discovery. A combination of attitudes, skills, and knowledge are usually
needed to operate successfully in any specific area. Attitudes are the most important and are the
most difficult to acquire.
Often a new attitude must replace an old attitude before skills or knowledge can be used. The
manager of learning must be able to detect this situation and know how to effect the change.
Counselling techniques are often used to enable a learner to see a need for change a change in
his attitude and accept the help you or members of his patrol or others can give him.

Not Lock-step
The Manager of Learning process is not lock-step but at the learner's own pace of discovery. It is
a heuristic learning process, because learning is:

Open ended. Not confined to one "right way".

Cyclical new learning is based on old learning plateaus.

MOL is not only one of the competencies taught in Junior Leader Training, it is a method for
leadership development which is essential to participatory leadership development. We not only
teach a competency called Manager of Learning, but we should be applying its principles in
everything we do during the learning program.