Commissioner Minute from November 8, 2018 - Thanksgiving for Servant Leaders

Please join me in giving thanks for the Cub Scout Leader.

Anyone who has ever been trained as a Cub Scout leader by Roger Claff has heard the expression “If it’s not for the Scouts, it’s for the birds”.  Egos, events, and the outside world are set aside for a while so we can focus on the Scouts and the Scouts alone. That’s why we are here... to serve the Scouts so that they can learn a shared set of values. If we could convey those values alone and home we would, but it’s hard to go it alone and still get the message across.


The message is the twelve points of the law and the Scout Oath.  The message to grow into people who make moral and ethical decisions.  The message is to lead and to serve others.

I want to pull back the curtain for just a minute and talk about a lesson that is taught on the older youth side of the Boy Scouts of America program. It’s hinted at in Cub Leader materials, but I’ve yet to encounter it in the Cub Leader materials as fully realized as you do in the Boy Scout Handbook Fifth Edition. In a section on “Leading Others” it has a subsection call “Servant Leadership” (page 41), in which it defines servant leadership as:

...the best leader is a servant, not a boss.  A servant leader listens and persuades instead of telling  people what to do. He recognizes the challenges his followers face instead of having unrealistic expectations.  He gives other people credit for the groups success instead of hogging the spotlight.

This is you to each of the Scouts you serve. You enable fun by working tirelessly to plan events they want to come to.  You enable adventure by listening to the Scouts when they say “Mount Vernon is cool” and “We should do more stuff like this” and then spend hours/days searching the internet for stuff that is just like Mount Vernon.  You enable dreams by spending some of your own money (or better yet dues) so they can learn to make a robot, build a rocket or go to camp to learn to canoe. You give them the world by taking them to the fire station, a TV station, the Pentagon or on a campout.

Cub leaders are by their very nature servant leaders. You are living the lessons of Scouting by serving your Scouts month after month. Lord Baden-Powell called Scouting “Fun with a Purpose” and while they may not remember your name in 30 years, they will remember the fun you lead.  

Your service means everything to the Cub Scouts. And for that we give thanks.



By David Rockwell