Transformational Leadership During Staff Week

Our staff training week before campers arrive is built around transformational leadership. This utilization of transformational leadership is evidenced about how the entire staff week is built around our five main staff goals:

• Camp is a life-changing experience, where campers learn things about themselves they didn’t know when they arrived – independence, responsibility, group living skills, new activity skills and decision making skills.
• No camper will “fall through the cracks.” Each child is attended to while at camp.
• Counselors have a positive impact on each camper, such that in 20 years each camper will remember his/her counselor’s name and experience at camp.
• Counselors are members of a supportive community, and they rely on each other.
• Each counselor realizes the effect their actions and behaviors have on the campers and that is reflected in the choices that they make.

I firmly believe that we have one of the best camp staffs in the country, and that is because of our staff’s commitment to these goals. Our director talks about the staff as pre- and post-2004, the year in which we enacted these staff goals. These goals are taken extremely seriously not just by our directors, but by every staff member as well. During interviews, our directors screen staff for their ability to put campers first and embrace these goals, however, the true excellence of our staff lies in the way we are trained to execute these goals during staff week. In essence, staff training week is a crash course in leadership as we prepare to lead our campers for the summer. In every training session, we talk about how the training session relates to our staff goals. In that sense, our staff training is designed to transform the staff we have into a staff who can fulfill these goals.

For example, our first staff meeting is called, “Why are We Here?” In this meeting, our director tells us his own story about how camp has affected his life, including when he “fell through the cracks” at the camp he attended as a child, and how his counselor’s poor choices negatively affected his camp experience. Other veteran staff members who were once campers tell stories about a specific counselor who fulfilled one of the goals while they were a camper and the significant impact that had on their own life. This strategy immediately elucidates to new staff how important our goals are because of the lasting impact they can have on our campers.

Having these big-picture goals helps us throughout the camp season by keeping us accountable for our actions and creating common goals. Both new and returning staff are at all meetings, even if returning staff already know the information from previous years, thus unifying everyone around the same information and objectives. These overall goals prevent staff from being caught up in the small problems throughout the season. As the summer goes on, it is incredible to witness the change that staff members undergo as individuals, so that they can create the best possible experience for our campers. In this case, transactional leadership would not be nearly as effective because of the mindset of the staff. The staff goals create intrinsic motivation, rather than external and contingent rewards. Meeting the staff goals does not result in any reward other than the positive change that becomes visible in our campers as the summer progresses. We are successful as a staff because we realize the gravity of our actions. Our staff is not here for material rewards or money, but rather to meet these goals and positively impact those around us.