Autonomy Vs Guided Discovery

One of the ventures mentioned this during the MSN chat we had the night before. They wanted more independence in running the venture unit, just like their predecessors. This is nothing new to me. It has always been a struggle for me to decide what sort of leadership role I should adopt for the ventures.

Full autonomy may not be possible as they did not have the necessary skills to run it. However, at the same time, scouting is about self discovery, experimentation and learning by doing. How do one define the competency of the ventures? What is benchmark for competency? Any tangible guides for us to monitor? I doubt so. Many a times, we get too impatient and skeptical to get out of the way and let the youth leaders lead (extracted from The scoutmaster’s other handbook by Mark Ray). At times, I tend to fall into this stage. We are always in a dilemma as to when we should start to step in so as to provide avenue for the youth to develop and learn from his/her mistakes.

The concept of guided discovery may not be applicable for the ventures either. They are now at a stage where they will want to explore and experiment more than when they were scouts. If it becomes an adult leader centered kind of leadership, we may stifle their creativity and to some extent, kill their passion.

I guess there is no right and wrong about how one should run the unit. Autonomy should be given, and it will have to come with regular guidance/coaching from the adult leaders. As long as I put in my best in running it, I will leave without regrets when the time comes. Just like my PSA, I have no idea how I should go about doing it. But my vision of getting it eventually led me to achieving it. I guess the same goes for the unit as we already draft up the objectives to be achieved by the end of senior batch’s term of office.

People, please feel free to feedback =)