A great leadership experience allows students to face the consequences of their decisions. This produces a struggle in their mind; one that requires them to count the cost of their actions. Don’t let students off the hook of decision making by rescuing them. The impulse is strong…resist it.

Teach your adult volunteers to resist the temptation as well. Most adults rescue students from making decisions because they want students to always win. It’s hard when students don’t win and we have to debrief with them what they did well and what they need to improve on. This is mentoring and most students never experience it. Without mentoring how do students know how to make good decisions? We take short-cuts when we don’t let students wrestle with decision making.