BOY SCOUT LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

The challenges of Heroes Night could be described in a lot of diverse ways. It was a project management challenge for sure. First, I had never conducted anything like this before so that was the first challenge. Then there was the entire inter-agency coordination thing in which many of this organizations had never even met before I introduced them to each other. It was also an administrative monster since no one had ever done anything like this before in our County. So, there were lots of initial “No we cannot do that” and safety concerns once the word helicopter was mentioned. You could call it a planning and coordination nightmare for sure since I was doing all of it while in class and then had to re-schedule it due to the Mosquito Wildland Fire. Doing it all once was bad enough, but twice was, well insanity on top of a full senior schedule, being the Captain of three Sports teams and the President of my High School Student Body as well as the Senior Patrol Leader for my Troop! So, in the end I came to the conclusion Heroes Night boiled down to one thing. It was a Leadership Challenge.

Leadership I leaned is about getting people to do what other people say is impossible! That is what I think a lot of peoples initial reaction was to Heroes Night when I first described it. Fortunately, I had learned a lot of invaluable lessons along the way as a Scout and they were about to pay off!

I remember how much I learned as a leader progressing through each position. How I grew as a leader as my responsibilities grew and I could look back upon the lessons I had learned from past lessons both good and bad. These lessons included things at the time that didn’t seem important like proper planning, checklists, scheduling, safety plans, rehearsals, giving presentations in front of groups, delegating, project management and communicating. Year after year my as my Scouting career progressed from Cub to Eagle, my leadership skills and abilities grew and strengthened, and their value was tested with Heroes Night.

Each leadership skill I learned as a Boy Scout I used throughout Heroes Night! It required all the project management, planning and coordinating, inter-agency, safety, time management skills I could muster, but in order bring everything together it required me to lead. That was a lot as I had to earn the respect of a lot of serious professional Military, Veterans, Police and Firemen with serious credentials to their names.  The results of Heroes Night speak for themselves and it was the result of a team effort by some of the most dedicated, supportive and amazing people! I am so thankful for my 13 years in scouting, it was the best way to prepare me to accomplish this mission.