How White Stag Compares to the National JLT Program

White Stag utilizes a set of leadership competencies,  which are more fully articulated than those distilled into the National BSA NYLT and Wood Badge programs. We are formally organized into a six-year, phased structure, allowing people to participate and enhance their skills over a number of years.

We are a little more ambitious because we can take several years to teach leadership. In other words, we don't try to teach everything to everyone each year, but a portion of it as appropriate to the learner's readiness, age, leadership position, and so forth. We encourage participants to return the next year for a bigger portion of the pie.

Béla Bánáthy, the founder of White Stag and man who conceptualized the leadership skills, wrote:

The significance of instruction is not questioned here at all. The point that is made here is that the learning task is the nucleus around which to design instruction. The role and function of instruction should be viewed in its proper relationship to learning. It should be planned for and provided for accordingly. Instruction is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Its function is to facilitate learning. ^[1]

According to Resources for Leadership:

The Emphasis is on Learning

A "manager of learning" is not simply a teacher. Teaching connotes activities too typically requiring a lecture hall and a large number of desks. The phrase manager of learning is carefully chosen. The emphasis is on learning, not on what the instructor teaches. Your job, as a manager of learning, is to help the participants to become more effective leaders.

Managers of learning are different from "teachers" or "instructors." They know that people learn as individuals, not as a class or group. They know each individual is important; therefore, each individual leader must learn or all will receive an inferior program. Whoever accepts the responsibility for managing learning must use unusual techniques to get unusual results.^[2]

The program also employs many years of accumulated spirit and traditions. These are extremely important to the success of the program. These spirit and traditions are designed to affect individuals emotionally, securing in their hearts a desire to become better people.

While enabling learning on an intellectual level, White Stag also positively influences people spiritually and emotionally. Individuals typically return again and again to participate in the White Stag program. And with that repeated exposure individuals begin to integrate the leadership role into their personal lives.

For More Information

• How White Stag Was Adopted by U.S. National BSA Council
• Origins of the Modern United States Wood Badge Program in White Stag

[1] Bánáthy, Béla. The Design and Management of Training. A Systems Approach. Boy Scout World Bureau, Geneva: 1969. 47pp.

[2] Phelps, Brian. "Resources for Leadership," Livermore, CA: 1998. 267pp.