Investigation on the Contribution of past Camp Experience on Leader-Member Exchange of leaders in summer children's camps

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between the quality of the Leader-Member Exchange and the camping experience of the leaders of private summer children's camps. The high quality of the leader-member exchange positively affects both individuals and groups and is a crucial factor of organizational success. The camp experiential experience contributes to the acquisition of various lifelong life skills that shape personalities and leadership behaviours. The quality assessment of the leader-member exchange was used by the Graen & Uhl-Bien (1995) Leader Member Exchange Questionnaire (LMX-7) and an open-ended question to measure the camping experience as a camper or a team leader/commune. The survey sample consisted of 62 leading executives of children's camps. The results showed that the camping experience of leaders contributes positively to the high quality of leader-member exchange. Leading executives who have no experiential experience as members of summer children's camps show low quality in exchanges relations with their subordinates. In conclusion, the leaders who have experienced the camping lifestyle can develop interpersonal relationships with added value with their subordinates, in order to better organizational effectiveness.