Lead Like a Guide – Applying the Lessons of Adventure to Your Organization

There is a joke, with a large dose of truth to it, in mountain guiding. If you want to be a great mountain guide you’ll need to fluidly and expertly transition between being an expert technical climber, a personal coach, a weatherman, a nurse, a chef, a logistics expert, an intrepid international liason, a project manager, and a decisive CEO – all within a single day. The tasks, skills, and roles guiding and adventuring ask of us as individuals can be daunting, but it can also be energizing. The terrain is never the same, the dynamics always shifting.

Dr. Chris Maxwell, a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of Business, recently highlighted the challenges of leadership in the mountains and the direct correlation to leading an organization. His work supports our first hand field experience: Business leaders who lead like a guide will provide the kind of leadership that supports the vision of the organization and uplifts the people who work to make that vision a reality.

Maxwell specifically highlights six leadership strengths of mountain guides:

• Guides demonstrate social intelligence
• Guides adapt leadership style to match changing conditions
• Guides empower others to reach for their own summits
• Guides facilitate the development of trust
• Guides manage risk in an environment of uncertainty
• Guides see the big picture

When working with organizations and delivering keynotes, I strive to not only highlight these lessons but also offer tangible and immediate ways to apply these lessons. Our workshops, either in the mountains or in the conference room, offer tools to employ these leadership skills and strengthen teams.

Business leaders who lead like a guide will provide the kind of leadership that supports the vision of the organization and uplifts the people who work to make that vision a reality.

The challenge we all face, whether in the mountains facing a pending storm in technical terrain or the pending launch of a new product or service and facing budget, timeline, and staffing difficulties, lay in applying the appropriate leadership style at the right time. It can be easy to fall back to our default style or, worse yet, react from a place of anxiety or stress and apply a leadership style that compounds the situation.

Adventuring offers an unlimited number of micro leadership opportunities. Opportunities to practice, learn, and receive immediate feedback. Consider your challenges as a leader, how do they line up with the leadership skills of a guide? Let us know below, add a comment or send us an email.