Leadership
My concise leadership philosophy? Give. Everything.
I recently read this — the 59th essay in the second edition of POISON — and decided it could be more clear so I edited and added photographs to illustrate it. I believe the topic is important because genuine leaders are few while influencers are many and these assume the title of leader simply because they have followers. A Pied Piper is a trickster, not a leader.
Anyway, a former student separated from the military and as part of his university program asked to conduct an interview. The stated topic was leadership but we covered a lot of terrain. I extracted the relevant ideas and exchanges from the interview to make this essay..
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What leadership lesson or lessons did you learn in the mountains that you find it most important to impart upon your trainees as you help them “improve [their] spirit” through your training regimen? If you had to define your leadership philosophy in as concise a manner as possible, how would you characterize it?
If we use the definition of leadership I believe most people hold in their heads then I don’t think one chooses to be a leader. In the mountains, of course we define leader as the one on the sharp end of the rope, finding the way, making decisions about his or her own safety in the moment, that of the team, managing overall risk, and also keeping the objective in sight, allowing it to influence those decisions. Democratic teams share that role 50/50, swapping leads equally. Smart teams put whoever is most capable of leading at any given moment in that role. Often though, someone just needs to take over and tell others what to do and when. In any situation — if you open your eyes and ears and get beyond ego — it is often clear who is capable of that. If the objective is important to the team then whoever can best achieve it should lead regardless of title, or rank.
