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LEADERSHIP OF LORD BADEN POWELL

Reference:
A. IKEM-BL(OPS).500-5/4/164.

B. MAF JP 0.01 – MAF Staff Manual (Service Writing) 2012.

INTRODUCTION

1. All leaders are born in this world has a strategy and tactics of each battle to
maintain security and protect the country from enemies. Different leaders would have
different styles of command, leadership, management, strategy and tactic in military.
One particular leader that is in this discussion of this paper is Robert Baden Powell
was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout
Movement.

2. Baden-Powell was born as Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell at 6 Stanhope

Street (now 11 Stanhope Terrace), Paddington in London, on 22 February 1857.
Baden-Powell was the son of The Reverend Baden Powell, a Savilian Professor of
Geometry at Oxford University and Church of England priest. Baden-Powell had four
much older half-siblings from the second of his father's two previous marriages.

AIM

3. This paper aim is to learn leadership element existed in Lord Baden Powell
based on Command, Leadership and Management studied.

SCOPE

4. This paper will cover scopes as shown below:

a. Definition of Leadership and Command.

b. Background, Personality and Military Carrier.

c. Contributions and Challenges.

d. Command and Leadership – Lord Baden Powell.

e. Conclusion.
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f. Recommendation.

DEFINITION OF COMMAND AND LEADERSHIP

5. Let us find out the definition of these three key words to make sure that we
know what the difference. The meaning shown as follow:

a. Command. A command in military terminology is an organizational

unit for which the individual in Military command is responsible. A Commander
will normally be specifically appointed to the role in order to provide a legal
framework for the authority.

b. Leadership. Leadership has been described as a process of social

influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the
accomplishment of a common task, although there are also other in-depth
definitions of leadership.

BACKGROUND, PERSONALITY IN MILITARY CARRIER

6. In 1876 Baden-Powell joined the 13th Hussars in India with the rank of
lieutenant. He enhanced and honed his military scouting skills amidst the Zulu in the
early 1880s in the Natal province of South Africa. He was promoted Major as Military
Secretary and senior Aide-de-camp of the Commander-in-Chief and Governor of
Malta. In 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting.

7. Baden-Powell returned to Africa in 1896, and served in the Second Matabele

War in order to relieve British South Africa Company personnel under siege in
Bulawayo. During the in serving, he gained experience for him not only because he
commanded reconnaissance missions into enemy territory in the Matopos Hills, but
because many of his later Boy Scout ideas took hold here.

8. Baden-Powell was accused of illegally executing a prisoner of war in 1896,

the Matabele chief Uwini, who had been promised his life would be spared if he
surrendered. Uwini was sentenced to be shot by firing squad by a military court, a

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sentence Baden-Powell confirmed. Baden-Powell was cleared by a military court of

inquiry but the colonial civil authorities wanted a civil investigation and trial.

9. Baden-Powell served in the Fourth Ashanti War in Gold Coast. In 1897, at the
age of 40, he was promoted colonel and posted to 5th Dragoon Guards in India.

10. Baden-Powell returned to South Africa before the Second Boer War and was
engaged in further military actions against the Zulus in the Siege of Mafeking
Operation. While engaged in this, he and much of his intended mobile force was at
Mafeking when it was surrounded by a Boer army, at times in excess of 8,000 men.

11. The Siege of Mafeking was the most famous British action in the Second Boer
War. It took place at the town of Mahikeng (called Mafeking by the British) in South
Africa over a period of 217 days, from October 1899 to May 1900, and turned Robert
Baden-Powell, who went on to found the Scouting Movement, into a national hero.
The Relief of Mafeking (the lifting of the siege) was a decisive victory for the British
and a crushing defeat for the Boers.

12. The siege was lifted on 16 May 1900. Baden-Powell was promoted to Major-
General, and became a national hero.

13. Back in the United Kingdom in October 1901, Baden-Powell was invited to visit
King Edward VII at Balmoral, the monarch's Scottish retreat, and personally invested
as Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).

14. Baden-Powell was further sidelined from active command. He returned to

England to take up a post as Inspector General of Cavalry in 1903. While holding
this position, Baden-Powell was in reforming reconnaissance training in British
cavalry, giving the force an important advantage in scouting ability over continental
rivals. In 1907 he was promoted to Lt. General but left on the inactive list. Eventually
he was appointed to the lowly command of the Northumbrian Division of the newly
formed Territorial Force.

15. In 1910, Baden-Powell retired from the Army. Baden-Powell claimed he was
advised by King Edward VII that he could better serve his country by promoting
Scouting.

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CONTRIBUTIONS AND CHALLENGES

16. Foundation of Scouting Movement. Honestly Baden Powell known as a

“Father of Scout”. In August 1907, Baden-Powell organised a trial scouting camp to
be made up of 20 boys from a diverse selection of social backgrounds. The boys
spent a week on Brownsea island and it proved to be a great success. From this
initial starting point, the scouting movement soon blossomed. In 1909, there was the
first National Scout Rally at Crystal Palace. It was attended by 11,000 boys and
illustrated the rapid growth in popularity. In 1910, The Girl Guides, which was run by
his sister Agnes Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys was published in
six instalments in 1908, and has sold approximately 150 million copies as the fourth
best-selling book of the 20th century.

17. A rally of Scouts was held at Crystal Palace in London in 1909, at which
Baden-Powell met some of the first Girl Scouts. In 1920, the 1st World Scout
Jamboree took place in Olympia in West Kensington, and Baden-Powell was
acclaimed Chief Scout of the World. Baden-Powell was created a Baronet in 1921
and Baron Baden-Powell, of Gilwell, in the County of Essex, on 17 September 1929,
Gilwell Park being the International Scout Leader training centre. After receiving this
honour, Baden-Powell mostly styled himself "Baden-Powell of Gilwell".The Scouting
movement also became an international organisation with scouting groups forming
around the world. By 1922 there were more than a million Scouts in 32 countries and
by 1939 the number of Scouts was in excess of 3.3 million.

18. Siege of Mafeking. Baden-Powell returned to South Africa before the Second
Boer War and was engaged in further military actions against the Zulus. Although
instructed to maintain a mobile mounted force on the frontier with the Boer republics,
Baden-Powell amassed stores and a garrison at Mafeking. While engaged in this, he
and much of his intended mobile force was at Mafeking when it was surrounded by a
Boer army, at times in excess of 8,000 men.

19. Baden-Powell was the garrison commander during the subsequent Siege of
Mafeking, which lasted 217 days. Although Baden-Powell could have destroyed his

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stores and had sufficient forces to break out throughout much of the siege, especially
since the Boers lacked adequate artillery to shell the town or its forces, he remained
in the town to the point of his intended mounted soldiers eating their horses.

20. The siege of the small town received undue attention from both the Boers and
international media because Lord Edward Cecil, the son of the British Prime Minister,
was besieged in the town. The garrison held out until relieved, in part thanks to
cunning deceptions, many devised by Baden-Powell. Fake minefields were planted
and his soldiers pretended to avoid non-existent barbed wire while moving between
trenches. Baden-Powell did much reconnaissance work himself. In one instance,
noting that the Boers had not removed the rail line, Baden-Powell loaded an
armoured locomotive with sharpshooters and sent it down the rails into the heart of
the Boer encampment and back again in a successful attack.

21. During the siege, the Mafeking Cadet Corps of white boys below fighting age
stood guard, carried messages, and assisted in hospitals, and so on, freeing grown
men to fight. Baden-Powell did not form the Cadet Corps himself, and there is no
evidence that he took much notice of them during the Siege. But he was sufficiently
impressed with both their courage and the equanimity with which they performed
their tasks to use them later as an object lesson in the first chapter of Scouting for
Boys.

The siege was lifted on 16 May 1900. Baden-Powell was promoted to Major-
General, and became a national hero.

COMMAND AND LEADERSHIP – LORD BADEN POWELL.

22. Command Element. In Siege of Mafeking, BP returned to South Africa prior

to the Second Boer War and was engaged in further military actions against the
Zulus. By this time, he had been promoted to be the youngest colonel in the British
Army. He was trapped in the Siege of Mafeking, and surrounded by a Boer army, at
times in excess of 8,000 men. Although wholly outnumbered, the garrison withstood
the siege for 217 days.

23. During the siege, a cadet corps, consisting of boys below fighting age, was
used to stand guard, carry messages, assist in hospitals and so on, freeing the men
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for military service. BP was sufficiently impressed with both their courage and the
equanimity with which they performed their tasks to use them later as an object
lesson in the first chapter of Scouting for Boys. The siege was lifted in the Relief of
Mafeking on 16 May 1900. Promoted to major general, BP became a national hero.

24. Leadership Element.

a. Intelligence. Lord Baden Powell wrote no less than 32 books, the

earnings from which helped to pay for his Scouting travels. As with all his
successors, he received no salary as Chief Scout.

b. Knowledgeable. Baden Powell attended Charterhouse School during

which time he took part in a number of activities including acting, singing and
cadet corps and art. In the woods near the school known as "The Copse" he
studied, stalked and tracked animals, birds and his friends and teachers.

c. Concerned. Baden Powell concern with the social lives and

imagination of young people, and how he was able to build on this to develop
an associational educational form. Robert Baden-Powell placed a special
value on adventure; on children and young people working together and
taking responsibility (his ‘patrol’ building on the idea of ‘natural’ friendship
groups and ‘gangs’) on developing self-sufficiency and on ‘learning through
doing’ (he was deeply suspicious of curriculum forms).

d. Strategic Thinking. He was quickly promoted and moved up through

the ranks and trained his men using competitions and games and taught them
how to track and live in wild country.

e. Respected. Following article about Baden Powell's Grave appeared in

the October 2001 issue of Scouting Magazine. The Magazine of the UK Scout
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Association, which in my opinion is good news for the Scout Movement

across the world.

CONCLUSION

25. As a conclusion, Baden Powel is a good a lieutenant-general in the British

Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement. As the conclusion, Baden Powell
was a social climber, not a good student, at times flighty, and a bit of a clown. He
would take others' ideas to enrich his own. He was not above stretching the truth if it
would make a better yarn around the campfire (or in a book). He was a man with feet
of clay. He was an idealist. His concern for young people was quite genuine. He tried
his best to be the role model for the movement. He created the greatest youth
movement ever seen, almost without wanting to. He breathed into it the Soul of
Scouting, which carried it around the world. He indeed did his best to do his duty to
his country and all the Scouts of the world.

RECOMMENDATION

26. The leadership of Baden Powell can be an example for military leaders in
fulfilling their tasks or mission and the contribution of Baden Powell is the best part to
refer for our life. The studies Baden Powell can also enhance or motivate leader of a
country the in seeking of independence and also can refer all of Baden Powell’s
book. Good military leaders start by winning easy battles and improving their
position. They wait until the opposition is weakened and morale is low before they
take on their foe directly.

(1960 WORDS)

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June 2017

…………………………………………..
MOHD IZUAN BIN MOHAMED
Kapt
EOAC Serial 26/17 Student
Engineer Operation Wing
Institut Kejuruteraan Medan Tentera Darat
Kem Mahkota
86000 KLUANG
Johor Darul Takzim

Bibliography:

1. Manual MD 0.0 TD Command, Leadership & Management (Provisional) 2007.

2. Manual MD 0.2.1 A TD Doktrin Kepimpinan Tentera Darat Malaysia 2005.
3. Robert Baden-Powell: Defender of Mafeking and Founder of the Boy Scouts
and the Girl Guides." Past Exhibition Archive, National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved
November 17, 2006.
4. B-P – Chief Scout of the World.” World Organization of the Scout Movement.
Retrieved March 22, 2007.
5. Baden-Powell, Robert. 1915. My Adventures as a Spy. Pine Tree Web.
Retrieved March 22, 2007.

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Distribution:

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Info:

Engineer Operation Wing

(For Attn: Kapt Shofian bin Mohd Sharir)

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