Welcome to the Summer Camp Leadership blog. For those of us who lead summer camps, making a positive difference in the lives of young people is our passion. Turning that passion into a reality, however, takes more than the ability to lead songs, teach archery or plan craft projects. Creating camp experiences that truly transform lives takes leadership. Leadership that creates a vision for the future, leadership that inspires and engages others, leadership that remains focused and stays the course. My hope is through this blog you'll find ideas, inspiration and tools to help you be a great summer camp leader.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Leadership Failure

Tim Irwin has studied both what makes leaders succeed and what leads to their failure. In his recent book Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership Irwin tells the story of six high profile leaders who suffered significant failures. From studying these and other failures, Irwin learned five key lessons about leadership failure.

1. Character trumps competence
2. Arrogance is the mother of all derailers
3. Lack of self/other awareness is a common denominator of all derailments
4. We are always who we are...especially under stress
5. Derailment is not inevitable, but without attention to development it is probable