Benefits of Adult Leadership Development

Founder Bela Banathy originally chose to train youth in leadership skills, because adults have "deeply and rigidly established patterns which are difficult to change." He felt leadership development needs to start early in life, when an opportunity exists to give individuals long-term exposure to leadership behavior. While this remains true, we believe investing in adult leadership development will strategically benefit the White Stag program.

There are dozens if not hundreds of professional groups, businesses, consultants, and organizations that offer a wide variety of leadership and management development programs. None of them provide the kind of development that White Stag offers.

Providing our own adult leadership development will benefit the White Stag Academy several ways.

Increase the competence of adult volunteers

When a new adult without prior White Stag experience joins the program, they serve as an assistant program leader. Because they are usually parents, they often have a challenge adjusting to a new role as a detached mentor and guide. As an assistant leader, they have limited opportunities to both practice and teach the leadership competencies. They are in effect gaining competence by osmosis, as they observe others. Using this method we can at most train about six adults per year. It takes each of them three or more years to develop a well-rounded knowledge of the eleven leadership competencies and the White Stag program's principles and methodologies.

Improve the transition of youth to adult staff

We also face the challenge of helping former youth staff members adapt to the changing role of adult staff. Many teens desire to continue their association with White Stag during or after completing college. They typically have some difficulty in detaching from their peers and assuming a more detached role as a guide and mentor. We currently require teens to take some time off before returning to serve in an adult capacity, or ask that they temporarily serve in a support capacity. This avenue does not allow them to contribute at their maximum effectiveness. It denies White Stag access to individuals with great leadership skills while they are young and able to dedicate themselves to the program. We too often lose contact with youth who after leaving college move on to employment and family life. We also lose an opportunity to nurture an ongoing relationship with them that could result in financial support in later years.

By providing direct training we will:

• Accelerate an adult’s ability to comprehend, integrate, and apply the leadership competencies both within and outside the White Stag program. By providing a hands-on program for adults, they will understand the effectiveness of experiential education. They will be challenged to apply the leadership competencies in their personal life and by returning to serve on adult program staff.
• Train more adults more quickly than is otherwise possible, significantly enhancing our ability to provide adult leadership to the entire program. Direct training will enable us to train as many as 18-24 adults in a single, week-long experience. While they will not graduate ready to lead an entire phase, they will be very ready to learn the additional skills required to work effectively with a group of teens as a coach-counselor and mentor.
• Improve the ability of adults to work effectively with teens. Most adults relate to teens in their role as parents. They have a difficult time learning to detach from the youth, allow them to make their own mistakes and learn from those mistakes. As parents they are more prone to act in their role as protector and disciplinarian rather than mentor, coach and guide. We need to equip adults with a better understanding of the trust and expectations that we have of our youth staff and the extraordinary accomplishments that result from empowering them to make decisions that reap both naturally occurring positive and negative consequences.
• Help youth make the transition from youth to adult staff, learning how to detach from their former peers, to focus on mentoring, coaching, and guiding, rather than peer-based relationships. This will allow youth who desire and are able to continue volunteering with the program to transition directly from youth staff to adult staff.

Improve program leaders’ ability to contribute

Adults who volunteer are also at a disadvantage when it comes to developing an appreciation for and understanding of the usefulness and impact of the program’s spirit and traditions. The songs, yells, cheers, campfires, and especially our ceremonies have a profound impact on a participant’s spirit. The ceremonies, usually performed deep in the woods in a fire-lit scene in the dark of night, act as rites of passage, commemorating and recognizing their acceptance of a challenge to pursue ongoing growth and development. They create an esprit de corps unmatched by other youth leadership development programs.

It currently takes about five years for an adult to become sufficiently competent in the leadership skills to teach them to youth staff. It takes equally long to develop an understanding of the usefulness, impact, and meaning of the various spirit-filled activities that we use, especially the traditions and ceremonies. It also takes a period of time to learn to interact with the youth using the patrol method, and to act as a mentor, counselor and advisor instead of a parent.

Adult Leadership Development will provide us an opportunity for direct development of these abilities. We estimate that the Adult Leadership Development phase will reduce the time it takes to develop a Phase Advisor from five to three years.

Additional Advantages of Adult Leadership Development

In addition to developing adult program staff more quickly, an adult leadership development program will generate several advantages to the White Stag Academy.

• Interested parents who want to support their children's participation in the program will get a hands-on experience of the program.
• Adults who participate in the adult program will help to demystify some of White Stag’s methods and practices.
• Adults who want to support the program will be able to make a greater contribution sooner, creating greater satisfaction in their experience.
• We are more likely to retain well-trained adult leaders.
• Provides a ready avenue for interested adults to quickly learn about the program in an in-depth fashion.

Our primary target audience for Adult Leadership Development are parent volunteers who want to volunteer to serve as adult program staff.