Leading Like a Guide: Utilizing Strengths of Mountaineers in the Business World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business leaders often note the parallels between the business world and mountaineering, such as setting common goals, building effective teams, plotting a route, and overcoming adversity. According to Chris Maxwell, PhD, Senior Fellow at the Center for Leadership and Change Management, The Wharton School, new research demonstrates that there are six key leadership strengths mountain guides use, which can have a significant impact on organizations as well.

Here are the action steps:

1. Make authentic connections, building positive relationships with those on your team. Telling people about positive events can foster social interactions, and active and constructive responses such as, “Your project came in on time and under budget,” are associated with emotional well-being and better relationships.

2. Adapt your leadership style to the situation. Mountain guides know when to switch leadership styles, based on location and conditions. Wharton research shows that choice of leadership style in the workplace can enhance or inhibit team performance, depending on the level of proactivity of team members. The best outcomes occur when passive followers have extraverted leaders and proactive followers have introverted leaders.

3. Empower your team. Management professor Natalia Lorinkova learned that empowered teams improve over time, while directed groups begin by performing more quickly but then plateau, being overtaken by the empowered groups. This is attributed to the enhanced opportunities for team learning, behavioral coordination, and development of collective knowledge structures.

4. Build trust. Leaders should strive to create the king of interconnectedness mountain climbers achieve by being physically linked together with ropes. The “perception of similarity” can make someone feel an emotional link with you, which increases empathy and willingness to cooperate.

5. Develop a checklist. In mountain climbing, checklists ensure no detail is overlooked. According to Mike Useem, Wharton management professor, a business leader’s checklist should include expressing confidence in and support for those you lead, communicating persuasively, and emphasizing the group’s common purpose.

6. Be a big-picture thinker. For mountain guides, reaching the summit is the ultimate goal. For business leaders, it is important to look beyond the restraints of the present. Start at a specific future moment and work back to the present to determine the best way to reach a goal.

Chris Maxwell’s book Lead Like a Guide: How World-Class Mountain Guides Inspire Us to Be Better Leaders will be published by Praeger in 2016.

For more information, visit Wharton@Work on the Web.

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