• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Great Leadership by Dan
  • Blog
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • About
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Blog
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • About
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • search icon
    Homepage link
    • Blog
    • Popular
    • Recent
    • About
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • ×

    You are here Home » leadership

    Don’t Just Lead – Guide!

    Last updated on Dec 1, 2016 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post from Chris Maxwell:

    I’ve always
    been a fan of adventure stories, and some of the most engaging of these are
    about great mountaineers and the triumphs and tragedies they have
    experienced.  Business leaders, too, revel in inspiring stories of
    overcoming adversity, and the metaphor of striving to reach a distant peak,
    with all its challenges and rewards, works beautifully in the workplace. 
    As Ed Bernbaum, a mountaineer and Senior Fellow at the Mountain Institute
    writes, “Just as Everest stretches people to do more than they thought they
    could, so companies want to stretch their employees to reach the loftiest
    goals, to be number one in the field, to provide the best product or service in
    the industry group.”

    But in my view, rather than the extreme mountaineer, it’s the mountain guide we
    can learn the most from.  Perhaps that’s because the thought of guiding others
    to reach their own summits at work is something we can all relate to -- and
    wish for.

    Over the past decade, I organized over twenty, guide-led expeditions designed
    to build leadership and teamwork skills for Wharton Business School
    students.  These ventures took place on high peaks and trails around the
    world, including remote locations in North America, Patagonia, and
    Iceland.  Although the expeditions were mentally and physically
    challenging, each allowed relatively inexperienced travelers to participate. 
    What the guides taught us about leading is now being put into practice by
    participants working in top organizations around the world.

    Here’s what I found -- guides display six important leadership strengths that
    work as well in business as they do in the mountains:

    1. Guides demonstrate social
    Intelligence, the ability to build and maintain positive relationships.
     
    Guides quickly establish personal relationships that don’t fracture easily
    under pressure.  Christian Hoogerheyde, a project manager at Socrata, a
    Seattle-based cloud software company, says his Icelandic guide’s social skills
    “serve as a lesson to me every time I try to establish a new client’s trust.”

    2. Guides are adaptable, and expertly
    change their leadership style as conditions on the mountain
    change.  One guide told me that he
    would teach his clients in the lodge, coach clients on steep snow slopes, and guide
    firmly when things got tough.  Seychelle Hicks, a team manager at Silicon
    Valley’s Bloomreach, says her expert guide helped her learn to navigate rough
    terrain on the mountain, coaching and leading by example. The experience helped
    her become more comfortable with using a variety of leadership styles at work,
    and to “adapt throughout the day to our customers, resourcing demands, building
    a self-directed team -- and only jumping in when needed.”

    3. Guides empower others to reach their
    own summits.
      Edmund Reese, an executive at American Express who was a
    member of a climbing team, says “The leadership lessons taught by both the guides
    and the mountain itself has honed my focus on embracing the front lines. 
    If we build leadership in others, we develop a stronger line and an overall
    stronger organization.”

    4. Guides are trust-builders. 
    On an expedition to remote Navarino Island at the very tip of South America,
    one guide told me, “Modeling what trust means is key.  It’s never about
    talking about things.  It’s about showing them.”  John Sims, CFO at
    Snowden Lane Partners who climbed the Grand Teton with a guide-led team, says,
    “Without trust in your teammates, you will only do as much as faith in your own
    limited abilities will take you.”

    5. Guides are risk-aware and provide
    safety in uncertain conditions. 
    Lyndsey Bunting, now director of
    financial analysis at Birchbox, left her job in investment banking to serve
    with the Peace Corps in a remote area of Panama.  Although she fell ill on
    her first guided summit attempt, she successfully returned to lead a team to
    the summit a year later.  She says, “Whether it’s a skill we’ve had to
    learn from a tough life, like many of the world’s poorest populations, or from mountain
    climbing or other pursuits, functioning and thriving in uncertainty is something
    that we’re all able to learn.”

    6. Guides see the big picture. 
    Less-experienced climbers may be lured by a beckoning summit, often falling
    victim to what’s known as “summit fever,” but the wisest guides take a more
    holistic view of the endeavor.  Deborah Horn, a manager at Microsoft,
    found that her climb was cut short by a fierce storm.  “At our night
    camp,” she says, “our guide delivered the message that we would have to end our
    climb.  I learned that even if the summit isn’t attained, the journey is
    just as valuable and rewarding as standing on the peak.”

    Chris Maxwell, PhD, is a Senior
    Fellow of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School
    of the University of Pennsylvania. His book, Lead
    Like a Guide:  How World-Class Mountain Guides Inspire Us to Be Better
    Leaders
    , is published by Praeger (September 2016).

    « How Successful People Create Their Own Future
    Ask Not What Your Habit Can Do for You, but What Your Habit Can Do for Others »
    AFTER ENTRY

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Primary Sidebar

    dan-mccarthy-great-leadership-by-dan

    About Dan

    Dan is an expert in leadership and management development. For over 20 years Dan has helped thousands of leaders and aspiring leaders improve their leadership capabilities. Read More

    ebook-dan-mccarthy

    Trending:

    • Top 12 Development Goals for Leaders
    • How to Write a Great Individual Development Plan (IDP)
    • 25 Great Leadership Development Quotes
    • The Performance and Potential Matrix (9 Box Model) – an Update

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    • Home
    • About
    • Contact

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Copyright © 2022

    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy