That was the question I posed to myself tonight as I thought about some what-if's. There are alot of people ,including myself, that are preparing for somthing big and bad. Am I letting it rule my life? No, but survival is deffinetly on my mind, when it comes to the protection of my family and myself. I have seen many of my own friends and even other members of the ATS board confess that they have a nagging feeling that somthing big is going to happen.Tthey feel that they are going to be some type of leader others who were left not knowing what happened.

Here's the situation

You find yourself in a post SHTF senario. You have somehow become the leader of some rag tag group of people. This group could be made of friends or people you've picked up along the way. You acting as the leader you've always wanted to be, now have to make life or death decisions for yourself aswell as other people. There would be alot of confusion and uncertainty. And I thought tonight of how to keep people from going crazy in your group.

I started with the root of our fears, our minds. So I began thinking of how people may let their fears rule them it they let it. So one method I thought about was keeping people busy. With such things as certain tasks for the group. People could keep their minds occupied with finding drinking water, getting a shelter built or anything that can keep them from dwelling on the horrible situation at hand.

The problem that soon came to me with this method was that while people will be doing physical tasks their minds are still left to themselves and are still capable of self destruct. An all around solution for this would to be keep everyone together doing the same task, insted of splitting the duties amongst the group.

Like I said before, there will likey be atleast some confusion no matter how prepared you think you and your B.O.Buddies are. So what is as assuring as having everyone on the same page, understanding everything going on at the same time everyone else is. If there are any questions or ideas about a certain task, someone can bring it up to the whole group and no one gets left out of the conversation because they were out getting fire wood while someone else building the sheltor had a better idea for fuel.

An added bonus, moral should be better aswell, because lets face it, when SHTF and we dont have others around us at pretty much all the time, at first. We will have a pretty good chance of losing it. Most people will need others to talk to and help work problems out.

If you fail to get the group all doing the same task and start delegating duties out to people, you may have opened a can of worms you wished you didnt. Once you start issuing out jobs you run the risk of someone being upset with your decision or believes they can not handle the responsibility on their own. It will all start going down hill from there. But if you work as a group you not only become more comfortable with your surrondings and situation, you also become more self reliant. Becase you are learning all the duties to stay alive. As a leader you want to make sure your group is self relient and the only thing the really need from you would be a point in the right direction. If you've all been working in a group long enough, eventually someone will feel comfortable and knowledgable enough about a task, that they feel that they can take it on by themselves. So in turn letting the group focus on other things.Before long everyone should be able to split off on their own as far as completing certain day to day or duty specific tasks.

In conclusion:
Not only will staying in a group allow people to feel safe, it will also allow them to learn how to survive. Which in turn is one way to help keep your group from going crazy.




Does anyone have any other ways to help keep a group of post SHTF'ers sane and on task, for the commen goal of survival?

just keep giving them flouridated tap water.

Worked for Hitler, Stalin, and uncle sam.

Good read my friend and spot on on delegateing tasks for individuals but its not a good idea haveing everyone doing the same task at the same time..temper flaires and all that... Through the years I have had more than my share of being the leader in numerous disaster operations as my job has ranged from supervisor of shelters to now coordinator of disaster operation/shelter operations. Proper deligation is a critical task in operateing any group of people and more so in a disaster situation. It gives a person a sense of security if they are helping to maintaine their environment and the pychological benefits is,as you have stated, that it gives the person something other than the situation at hand to think on. I'll keep this short as possible,if not, I could easly write for days on any given detail of operateing a shelter in a leadership position. Just a few things I'll add to your post:

First and foremost you got to take care of you.Its easy to try and be the hero when you are put in a leadership role but you are going to be no good to anyone if you run yourself down. Delegate leadership responcibilities to those who are willing and exibit the ability to do so. Get sleep whenever you can!!! Management is a 24/7 job and there will never be a time for a full night/day sleep. Keep an eye out for inconsistent and rapidly changing policies within your command structure they will cause unrest indefinately.Its understandable that each supervisor will have their own way of manageing a group but too many rules trigger fight or flight in the average person so make sure the "this is whats going to happen on my watch" attitude stays to a minimum within your structure by sticking to a basic set of rules.
Secondly,and I beleive you touched on this in your thread as well, it is important to have a command structure but the ultimate goal is self reliance. Decide is this situation going to be temporary or long term.How long do you your self plan to be there? This is important.As a leader YOU are the morale. Backing out of that role is a delicate situation. It is important to let everyone know in the begining: This is how long this camp/shelter/whatever is going to be open with these provisions(leadership,food,amo, etc.) and self support is the ending goal. Well thats my two cents and i would be glad to add more but it would be a thread in a thread. Hope this is what you were looking for.

In a survival situation there's no room for a democracy. You must have only one leader, and his say must be the final word. There's no time for debates or petty grievances.The selection of the leader should be made at the formation of the group. Consequences for disobedience should also be decided upon and then adhered to consistently. Without leadership and discipline, you'll have nothing but an unruly mob instead of a cohesive group that works together.

Every individual should have a job to do, as nobody likes to carry dead weight. As the saying goes: "Idle hand are the Devil's tools". Resources should be pooled, and the distributed equally.