I'm not a section leader (I am a freshman right now), but I really liked how my section leader worked everything out. He never hosted any outside practices outside of our usual rehersals. Three practices a week, a game on Friday, and competitions Saturday. Most of my section is involved with other band stuff at the high school or middle school (freshman don't go to the high school until they're a sophomore), so it would've been way too much work for all of us and we would rarely be there all together. Still, we ended up to be a pretty strong section (I'd argue one of the best this year, but to each his own :P). He compensated for not having these extra rehearsals by making sure we got work done whenever we were practicing. Whenever we were out practicing, it seemed he always knew what, if anything, was wrong with the form and how to fix it. Saved us from getting yelled at by our director. One of the most important things is to let your section to have fun. Whenever we had sectionals, he wouldn't just let us goof off, but we would always have friendly talk (I don't know how to describe it) so it wasn't constant playing and fixing. However, he still made sure we got work done and did it right. We actually didn't finish learning our show until mid-September. We cut out a huge chunk of our third move and didn't move after the third movement to finish out our show for the longest time. Our director brought the entire band together and asked us to play the third movement. As we got further and further into the movement, more and more sections started bailing out. It ended up with only us and a lone piccolo playing. It goes to show that you don't need to beat down all of the members of your section to get them to do stuff right. My section leader had the perfect balance of work and fun, which made him, marching band, and the rest of my section a lot more likable.