Leadership Styles

TM passed along links to the following posts by Mark Tozer: Styles of Leadership and Tannenbaum & Schmidt’s Leadership Continuum.
The first article describes three basic leadership styles:

• Autocratic
• Democratic
• Laissez-faire

They progress from the leader having total control of the group to the group having total control of the group.
The second article discusses the reality that leadership is practiced along a continuum of styles. Leaders exercise their authority in different ways depending on a variety of conditions. These conditions include the situation, the group, and the leader themselves. In situations where getting things done is imperative, a leader is likely to act more autocratically. In groups where the leader is confident that others will act promptly and correctly, the leader will likely be more democratic. If a leader is feeling insecure or having a bad day, they may be more autocratic. A tired leader may be laissez-fair.
I personally tend to take a more laissez-fair approach when I lead paddles and know that it is rarely the best style in a large group. It works well when I am paddling with TM, PB, and a few others because we are very familiar with how the others think, have similar risk profiles, and similar skill levels. In most club paddles that I've lead, the let the group decide approach rarely works well. Sometimes it is because the group naturally wants someone to be in charge. Sometimes it is because too many cooks ruin the stew. Other times it can lead to paralysis. In all of these cases I move more towards the middle of the continuum, but it is not my "style".
TM, on the other hand, tends to be more of the autocrat. He has the whole trip planned out ahead of time, and wants the group to follow his lead. This also rarely works out and TM typically tends to be more democratic than autocratic.
Other leaders also have default styles. The truth is that in most cases the style that works is somewhere in between dictator and buddy. People want to feel respected and part of the group, but they also want to know that a skilled and competent leader will make the hard decisions.
In a crisis, however, that the autocrat must rule. Only one person should take charge in a rescue. The leader may choose to delegate some authority to others to manage a complex situation, but they must all be on the same page. When the group must act, and act successfully, a benign dictator is the best leader. In a storm, a rescue situation, or blinding fog, there is little time for debate.

Coordinating and Picking Paddlers

A post on the RICKA message board got me thinking about if it is appropriate to tell paddlers when they cannot paddle. I personally think that it is appropriate for a person posting a show and go paddle to set expectations for the skill level that is required to participate in the paddle. If I had my drothers, it would be required. An "official" paddle does not get put on the schedule with a level rating.
The difference between a level rating and what usually gets added to a show and go posting is that a level rating describes the trip's difficulty and show and go postings usually describe the paddler's skills. Both are intended to help a paddler decide if the paddle is appropriate for them. However, making statements about the skills paddlers are expected to have smacks of elitism and judgement.
Elitism is poison to a club. It is a well established custom that RICKA paddles are open to all comers and coordinators do not turn participants away. This helps build club membership. It also helps paddlers grow. It also allows a sense of democracy to flourish in the club.
While I understand the reasoning behind it, I'm not a big fan of this custom. It puts a coordinator in the awkward position of either taking paddlers into conditions they are not prepared for or to change a trip to accomodate a weak paddler. It puts the coordinator in a compromised position before leaving the beach. Toning a paddle down for one paddler is not fair to the others on the trip who are expecting certain conditions. It is also not fair to the paddler allowed to participate. It gives them a false sense of their skills.
TM was saying that the coaches at Sea Kayak Georgia's position on this is that the trip leader has the final say on who gets to participate. The leader is the authority from the time paddlers show up on the beach to the time the kayaks are back on the cars.
While I think this draconian approach is the safest approach, it is not realistic for an American paddling club. Very few would be willing to accept the needed level of authority and the associated liability. Even if coordinators did start assuming this authority other paddlers would grow resentful.
How can coordinators find the middle ground? As I said earlier in the post I think people leading a show and go paddle should be upfront about the expected difficulty of the paddle they plan on running. They should be careful not to sound judgmental about people's skills, but they should be firm. They probably need to be prepared to accept that some paddlers on the edge of the envelope will be on the trip and plan accordingly. However, coordinators should turn away people who are clearly incapable of handling the expected conditions.

When is the Paddle is too Big for the Paddler

There has been a lot of discussion in our club over the last season about how to deal with paddlers who show up for paddles that are at the very limit of their abilities and endurance. There have been a few times where the conditions have taken unpredictable turns for the worse and turned a paddle that was a stretch for one or more paddlers into paddles that were more than they could safely handle. There have also been a few paddles where paddlers that were slow showed up where the majority of the group were fast.
It is one of the perennial problems with open club paddles. Sometimes the people who show up to paddle are not the people best suited to the trip as planned. Sometimes you get people along for whom the trip is at the upper edge of their skills or endurance. It is not always fun or fair, but it is up to the trip coordinators to either tell the inappropriate people to stay on the beach, change the plan, or deal with any issues as the arise.
Personally, I think the least good solution is telling people to stay on the beach. I know of many paddles that I should have sat out in my first few seasons. If had not been allowed to participate, I would not have grown as a paddler or I would have found a club that was more friendly. There are clear trip levels posted that are designed to help paddlers make wise choices. When a paddler starts showing up for a lot of inappropriate paddles, it is appropriate for someone in a leadership position to gently help them see that they are making poor choices. That approach should be the exception and not the rule and should only be handled by club leadership.
If paddlers want to do particular paddles and be able to set the tone and level of the paddle precisely, they should coordinate paddles outside of the club framework. Then they can have control over who knows about the trip and who gets to participate. If a paddle is coordinated through the club framework, it is a club paddle and the coordinators should be prepared to deal with any and all paddlers.

Random Thoughts on Club Paddling

Two things have been rambling around in my head about club paddling recently: trip levels and expectations. They are intertwined and distinct. Trip levels are one way of setting expectations, but often expectations are entirely dependent on people: who you are and who shows up at the launch.
A recent paddle sparked some discussion about retooling the RICKA sea kayaking trip levels. A paddler showed up for a trip that was at the outer edge of their abilities. It was not a problem because the conditions were perfectly boring. The concern, however, was that if conditions changed, this paddler would need assistance. This is not a rare occurrence. Paddlers frequently show up for trips that push their abilities (and some times clearly exceed them). So, there was a proposition to make the levels clearer, a little more stringent, and closer tied to wind/wave conditions. The hope, I think, being that people would make better self selection choices.
I had a hand in writing the current club guidelines so I'm a little biased towards them. They are definitely not perfect, but they do attempt to strike a balance between allowing people to grow and guiding them away from endangering others. The current guidelines were based on a professional guiding outfit's trip levels. This gives them a whiff of authority, but also make them a little problematic for a club. A professional outfit has a greater ability to screen out participants than a club does, so the outfitter can afford a little leeway.
The tricks to developing good trip guidelines for a club are manifold: They need to be realistic, stringent, and clear enough to guide paddlers into avoiding trips that are outside of their range. However, they need to be flexible to allow a paddler to participate in paddles that are at the outer limits of their range. A paddler may be fairly new to the water, but be strong paddler. They can probably handle some of the conditions of a level three paddle, but not the ones at the extremes. Or they may be able to handle the conditions, but be uncomfortable due to lack of exposure.
The guidelines also need to allow for a certain variability in ranges. For example, a paddler may be able to go like gang busters for long distances, but not have a solid roll. Clearly this paddler can participate in long distance paddles, but should avoid rough water paddles even if they are rated at the same level.
The guidelines should be tied to weather and sea conditions since they are factors in trip difficulty. However, they must allow for the unpredictability of the weather as well. If the guidelines said that an intro level trip required waves of a foot or less and winds of 5 knots or less, it would be impossible to schedule an intro level trip. The chances of the conditions exceeding the limits are just too great.
The guidelines also fall pray to the imperfect creatures called paddlers. In general, paddlers tend to over estimate their skills and guidelines need to account for this. Paddlers also tend to come with different shapes, sizes, baggage, and experiences. Trip coordinators always make judgement calls about what the estimated trip level should be when scheduling the trip and often base their estimate on what sort of trip they think they want to lead. Trip coordinators also make all sorts of judgement calls on the day of the paddle about letting paddlers participate or whether to change the trip to accommodate the paddlers planning on participating.
Guideline setting is a messy business and its success or failure requires a lot of vigilance. Coordinators need to pay attention to who is showing up for paddles and provide feedback to the guideline committee. Coordinators also need to make good decisions about screening out inappropriate paddlers or changing the trip to accommodate the group. Sometimes, it means accepting that any set of guidelines cannot address every situation.
Expectations are another sticky widget. I know there are many paddles that I go on and expect to be challenged, or not, and find that the paddle does not live up to my expectations. I know this is my problem, but I think others experience the same thine. Some times the change in expectations is because I just had a crazy idea of the paddle in my head. Other times the change is caused by the weather or the sea state. (You cannot have an epic paddle without wind or waves and cannot relax in six foot swells.) Often times, though it is because the group that shows up for the paddle is not in line with my expectations.
Group makeup defines what a trip will be like. Sometimes an easy level three trip will turn into a crazed, death paddle because a bunch of experienced, skilled, rock hoppers will show up and hijack the trip. Other times what should be an epic, or at least challenging, level four paddle turns into a leisurely cruise because a bunch of scenery seeing, relaxation seekers show up and hijack the trip. Neither outcome is bad for the group since it is a club paddle.
I guess what I've been realizing is that if I want to do a particular type of trip, say bounce around in the swells and rocks, I can either make it a club trip and accept that on the day of the paddle it may turn into a coastal tour, or just put together a group outside the club framework. Some, I suppose, would call this elitism or a similar thing. I, however, think it just makes sense. Club paddles are for the club and that means accepting what the group at large wants to do. Sometimes, paddlers need to have the option of doing something that requires more control over the participants of the group.