Everything I Needed to Know about Leadership I Learned in the Boy Scouts

Abstract

Leadership is one of the most important skills an engineer can possess in the twenty-first century. A Google search on the term “leadership” yields more than 170,000,000 hits indicating it is one of the most written about and discussed management concerns. This paper describes the Boy Scout program, which is one of the best leadership programs in the world and begins to teach boys to be leaders at age 11. Many leaders of business, government, and education have indicated that the Boy Scout program was one of the most important experiences in their lives, one that impacted their thinking and actions throughout their careers. The article ends with a modest proposal of ways the Boy Scouts, civil engineering departments, and ASCE can collaborate to train future leaders of the profession.