Leadership Lessons from a Camp Counsellor

For 10 years, my son, Lucas, has attended a summer camp. Over the years, he has moved from camper to Counsellor in Training (CIT) to becoming a Full Time Counsellor last summer. The camp is a summer program teaching kids wilderness survival training. For him, it is nine weeks spent outdoors rain or shine entertaining elementary aged children.

When he became a Full time Counsellor last year, he became part of the staff deciding the activities for the summer. He, along with some trusty assistants (CITs), were assigned to a group of children each week teaching them wilderness survival skills then helping them use those skills to compete in challenges at the end of the week. If there was ever a place to learn about leadership, get a dozen children aged 6-12 to work together to build shelter and fire as if they were competing on an episode of Survivor. Whether he knew it or not, my son was beginning to get a taste of leadership.

Before summer camp began, I pointed out to him that he was moving into a leadership role. Out of curiosity, I asked him what was his definition of leadership. Without missing a beat, he responded,

"As far as I can tell, I get paid more to do less."

I chuckled aloud at his very young view of leadership. As the summer progressed, it was amusing to hear his challenges. They were not unlike what many leaders face. In one particular week, he had a group of children who were not interested in working as a team. Instead of helping build one awesome group shelter, several children started doing their own thing by building individual shelters around the main one. It was an interesting leadership challenge for my son as he tried to figure out how to engage them to work together. He decided to allow them to do their own thing in the shelter challenge, but encouraged them to work together in other ways.

At the end of nine weeks of leading children, I asked him again what he NOW thought leadership was about. At first he said, "My job is to keep the kids entertained and make sure they have fun." I coached him a little bringing up some of his challenges such as the week where the children did not want to work together to build a team shelter. Lucas said, "Here's what I know, Mom,..."

"Kids like to win. I found if I helped each kid win,

we could win as a group."

I thought that was very insightful. I dug a little further asking, "How did you help kids win?" He said, "Every week there were awards that each team could win. Different kids had different awards that they were interested in winning. I helped kids work toward the awards they were interested in." He added, "I also helped the kids feel good about themselves. Small children had difficulty hitting the target in archery competitions. If I helped them hit the target, they would feel really good about themselves."

Nine weeks as a Camp Counsellor had become more than a job, but an early opportunity to learn some valuable leadership lessons.

Here are 3 great leadership reminders from a young leader:

(1) Encourage others, don't command them to get the work done.

(2) Find ways to help others win.

(3) Help people feel good about themselves.

These were his reflections as a Camp Counsellor 2016 that I shared on Linkedin last year.

Update

Other than looking older, I wondered if Lucas had anymore leadership gold to share in 2017 as he now has two summers as camp counsellor behind him. Across the breakfast table this morning, this is what I learned.

I asked Lucas what he learned about leadership this summer. He has a hard time answering that question, so again I coached reminding him of the weeks where he said the kids were difficult. I asked him what that meant. Difficult weeks are when the kids don't listen. So I asked him, "How do you get them to listen?" He told me you have to get them to like you. Curious, I asked how do you do that? He said, "You have to be on their side and you do that by talking to them a lot. In a way, you 'kinda' gain their trust by showing them you are listening."

More Leadership Lessons:

1) Get on the side of others. (Leadership is all about other people.)

2) Listen to others

3) Build trust by showing you are listening.

Summer jobs like Camp Counsellor roles help young people build leadership skills early. Since leadership is all about INFLUENCE, encourage youth to move into leadership roles. Youth have a great ability to influence other youth. Plus, they are getting a head start on learning the skills that are so in demand in the marketplace.

"Youth are not leaders of tomorrow. They are leaders of today."

- Nick Vujucic

Lead early. Lead often.

To your continued growth....

Dana