Talk:NYLT program

Suggested merge

The details presented here are excellent, but I don't think merit an entirely separate article. I just removed a good deal of program history from the National Youth Leadership Training article into a new overview article Leadership training (Boy Scouts of America). That means the NYLT article is much shorter and the content from this article could easily be merged into the NYLT article. Niether this nor the NYLT article are long enough to justify separate article about the the same subject. Add to the discussion here.— btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 23:10, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

References not supportive

Virtually of the references in this article, while numerous, do not support the statements they are attached to, but are merely links to companies or books that employ those practices or concepts. The fact that many of the concepts are in current use by many companies does not by association support the fact the NYLT uses the concepts nor how well NYLT implements the concepts. For example, the reference to Situational Leadership adds no value, because NYLT does not use Situational Leadership. Situational Leadership is a trademarked term and the company that licenses Situational Leadership charges a fee to use it, which is why the BSA chose instead to implement Tucker's model. These references need to be updated or the content will have to be removed. — btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I will review the references, but NYLT does use Situational Leadership in the form of explain, demonstrate, guide and enable as leadership behaviors. Not the telling, selling, participating and delegating that Blanchard and Hersey use, but having the same intent to have the leader assume a leadership style for each stage of team development. And yes the BSA adopted Tuckman's stages and not Blanchard and Hersey's maturity levels, but Tuckman doesn't have leadership behaviors just group behaviors. Questions? Comments? Skipper Tryon2 (talk) 04:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

What you've written is really good, but it needs good secondary sources. I certainly understand that the BSA has drawn on resources that are common to Hersey and Blanchard and that the curriculum in NYLT is based on part on that research. But for this and other content, you can't use references to infer that the related information confirms what NYLT does. Whatever sources you cite should clearly support the statement they are attached to. These ought to be "secondary sources", that is, a second party reporting on NYLT, vs a "primary source", which is the BSA reporting on itself. Primary sources lack objectivity. If you are unsure about what qualifies as a reliable secondary source, see the article on reliable sources. — btphelps^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I understand you point. Looking at shared vision, the syllabus clearly talks about shared vision on day-one 22 but they don't reference a source for the concept. Kouzes and Posner forward shared vision as a necessary element of leadership. Could there be another source for shared vision? Yes Is the Kouzes and Posner message the same as the NYLT syllabus? Yes And of course the syllabus (and the design team members, two of who are good friends of mine) are primary sources. Secondary sources would be an independent person doing a critical review of the NYLT program. I have never seen one and what would drive someone to complete one?

Also the statement that these leadership skills are pervasive in business leadership courses, doesn't have a source that makes that statement. There are many dozens if not hundreds of leadership course descriptions that use the NYLT skills. There are references for small team development and use of outdoor experiences but not the specific 14 NYLT leadership skills and their components.

Back to digging, more counsel would be appreciated, thanx Skipper Tryon2 (talk) 02:32, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Just because two organizations contain the same concept does not mean that either one utilizes the other organizations practices or principles. The secondary source needs to explicitly reference the other organization. Because many of the references provided did not do that, I have removed most of the unsupported content during the merge. Feel free to add the content back when you provide suitable references.— btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:51, 10 November 2011 (UTC)