Got Trust??

​Happy March and early Spring!
 
With the warming temperatures and lack of snow, it’s hard to imagine that we are still 3 weeks away from the official start of spring. It definitely made our February trip to Giant’s Ridge a lot slushier, and we took advantage by having a tailgate cook-out on Sunday to close out our time there!
 
This past Monday at the Troop Leader Meeting, we demonstrated, discussed and learned about the first point of the Scout Law, A Scout is Trustworthy, and how that enables and forms the foundation of Leadership Development. One of the key areas of being a Boy Scout and advancing in rank is assuming larger and more complex leadership roles. As a Scout grows, he also learns that he himself cannot do all of his role perfectly out of the gate. This is where trust and leadership meet.
 
Scouts learn and grow together as a Patrol and as a Troop. Through this growth, they learn about each other and how they individually can work together with others. Then when a Scout becomes a leader, he leverages these relationships to lead his fellow Scouts. The Scouts then follow their leader because he was elected by them, his peer group. The key to making this all work in the end though is through the trust they put in each other. Sure, each Scout has innate leadership skills and abilities, but only by listening, compromising and trusting each other can a leader truly lead.  We demonstrated this by creating group human chairs that only allowed the whole group to sit together or fail together – enabled solely through trusting and following each other into a sitting position.
 
So, I challenge each Scout this month, what are you doing to grow your trust in others and how are you helping your fellow Scouts become more trust-worthy of you?
 
Yours in Scouting,
SM Smith