Business leaders who

lead like a guide

will provide the kind
of leadership that
supports the vision of
the organisation and
uplifts the people who
work to make that
vision a reality.

66 The
photo European
credit: Business
courtesy author November - December 2014
Review
of the

TO BE A BETTER LEADER,
LEAD LIKE A GUIDE
Mountaineering and business share
many common aspects. Here Chris
Maxwell demonstrates how business
leaders who lead like mountain guides
provide the kind of leadership that
supports the vision of their organisa-
tion and uplifts the people who work to
make that vision a reality.
B
usiness leaders often call on met-
aphors from mountaineering to
inspire employees and boost or-
ganisational performance. Visualising
the summit, with its promise of unchart-
ed horizons beyond, stirs the heart of the
entrepreneur and manager alike. Setting
a common goal, building effective teams,
determining a route, overcoming adver-
sity – all are essential components of
both mountaineering and business. It’s no
wonder that firms often hire Mt. Everest
climbers to give motivational speech-
es to their employees, writes mountain-
eer and author Edwin Bernbaum. “Just as
Everest stretches people to do more than
they thought they could, so companies
want to stretch their employees to help
the organisation reach the loftiest goals,
to be number one in the field, to provide
the best product or service in the indus-
try group.”1
Inspirational images like Mt. Everest
signify to all employees the importance
Leadership
BY CHRIS MAXWELL
of the organisation’s top-level goals.
Just as for mountaineers, an organisa-
tion’s vision must be linked with a clear
route to the summit. With the vision and
route established, what happens next is
largely dependent on complementary
leadership action. My research shows
that world-class mountain guides dem-
onstrate six key leadership strengths that
help their charges reach for the highest
peaks in challenging conditions, and that
these same strengths have a significant
impact when applied within organisa-
tions. My advice: To be a better leader,
lead like a guide.
The Six Leadership Strengths of
Mountain Guides
Mountain guides employ six key leader-
ship strengths. Guides are:
• Socially intelligent, quickly establish-
ing positive interactions with clients
• Adaptable, matching their leadership
style to rapidly changing conditions
• Empowering, providing clients a
supportive space for growth and
development
• Trust-builders, helping clients learn
to trust themselves and their teams
• Risk-aware, operating with skill and
safety in uncertain conditions
• Big-picture thinkers, taking a holistic
view of the endeavour
With these strengths as a comple-
ment to technical ability, a guide active-
ly models leadership in a manner that in-
spires and motivates a team to work well
with others, adapt to change, focus on
strengths, develop trusting relationships,
build comfort with uncertainty, and take a
broad view.
About the Research
After climbing the Grand Teton,
a 4,000 meter peak in the Rocky
Mountains, with a guide-led team, I
set out to learn how mountain guides
help climbers reach high summits. I
conducted interviews with eleven
world-class mountaineers, three of
whom had stood on the summit of Mt.
Everest. Additionally, in partnership
with a close circle of top international
mountain guides, I organised 21
educational expeditions over the past
decade, and climbed and trekked with
over 200 Wharton School participants
in North America, Patagonia, Peru,
Quebec, Mexico, and Iceland. I asked
expedition participants to reflect on
lessons learned from their guides
and to consider how these exper-
iences have contributed to their work
in management consulting, finance,
and technology.
www.europeanbusinessreview.com 67
1. Guides Demonstrate Social
Intelligence
Guides consistently interact with clients
in a manner that demonstrates social in-
telligence. Psychologists Chris Peterson
and Martin Seligman, write, “Social in-
telligence concerns one’s relationships
with other people, including the social
relationships involved in intimacy and
trust, persuasion, group memberships,
and political power”.2 People who are
high in social intelligence, Peterson and
Seligman say, are able to understand and
manage emotion, accurately assess one’s
own performance at a variety of tasks, act
wisely in relationships, and use social in-
formation to get others to cooperate.
Guides understand that they must get
to know their clients quickly, and must
build relationships that will work as the
challenges of the day get tougher. “I’m
a good listener,” guide Jack Tackle told
me. “I can tell within a few minutes how
it’s going to go.” Guide Mark Newcomb
says, “Over time I’ve developed a sense of
what peoples’ skills and talents are after
working with them for just a few hours.
Then I can start to help them find their
role in the process, help them gel as a
team. I can also give them some things
they can work on to round out their skills
and apply their strengths.”
Christian Hoogerheyde, a Data
Solutions Architect at Socrata, was a
participant on a guided expedition that
reached the summit of Hvannadalshnúkur,
Iceland’s highest peak. “A highly-val-
ued skill in the consulting world,” he says,
“is the ability to interact comfortably
68 The European Business Review November - December 2014
with people in any type of organisation,
no matter their function, rank, or loca-
tion. The ability to quickly establish posi-
tive relationships is crucial in this highly-
competitive industry. Our guide, Halldór
Albertsson, received a group of clients
with experiences and backgrounds vastly
different from his own, and he needed to
garner their trust quickly.” Hoogerheyde
says his guide was “skilled at establishing
positive relationships with each of us, and
this has served as a lesson to me every time
I try to earn a new client’s trust. I now see
firsthand how far social and emotional in-
telligence go towards achieving business
success, and I am thankful for the example
of a guide who showed me the way.”
2. Guides Adapt Leadership Style to
Match Changing Conditions
Guides employ a number of different
leadership styles while helping clients
manage difficult terrain and reach for
their summits. Guides try to help clients
along a path of self-discovery and accom-
plishment, building on their strengths and
coaching and teaching on the finer points,
but guiding in the most severe condi-
tions can quickly become a “follow me” or
even “do it, now” process. Daniel Goleman
terms the former an “authoritative” lead-
ership style which provides a vision and
clear direction, and the latter a “coercive”
style, best reserved for a crisis situation.3
Expert guides toggle smoothly through
leadership styles in a process that Doug
Coombs, a ski mountaineering guide and
two-time World Extreme Skiing champi-
on, called “teach, coach, guide.” Coombs,
who guided clients on steep slopes around
the world, told me he would teach clients
patiently before the day began or in the
evenings once back at the lodge, coach
clients to help them improve their tech-
nique while in the field, and guide them
firmly, requiring compliance if condi-
tions on the mountain were uncertain or
changing for the worse. Guide Al Read
says “You need to be aware of what the
client is doing all the time. You have to
take charge, but not in a military way
unless things get really tough.” A skilled
guide makes it all work seamlessly by as-
sessing conditions and the environment,
as well as the competence and disposi-
tion of their clients, and applying the right
leadership style at the right time.
Mansi Jain, an analyst with McKinsey
& Company, recently trekked in Patagonia
with an expert guide. “My guide employed
a variety of leadership styles,” she says,
“such as collaborative when designing
the trip and authoritative for issues related
to our safety. His ability to fluidly adopt
different leadership styles while always
aiming to lead by example is the reason
that I developed respect for him.”
“One of the most important skills con-
sultants learn,” she continues, “is how to
tailor their approach to the individual or
group they are working with. I exercised
this skill while working on an implemen-
tation and capability-building project
with a bank. At the beginning of the study
our clients were wary of my credibility
and experience in the industry but were
also in dire need of direction and effec-
tive execution. As a result I employed an
authoritative leadership style; I led training sessions, proactive-
ly steered key discussions, and explicitly gave research-based
opinions whenever possible. Towards the end of the study,
however, I needed to ensure that the clients had the capabili-
ties to have sustainable impact. I therefore changed my leader-
ship style to one of ‘leading by example’ or ‘showing, not telling.’
I created templates for the clients to fill out, appointed others to
lead training sessions, and pushed the clients for their opinions
before offering mine. The clients were ultimately able to roll out
and sustain high-impact changes to the company.”
3. Guides Empower Others to Reach for their Own Summits
Research conducted by Josh Arnold and his study team revealed
that critical leader behaviours in empowered team environments
in three diverse industries included leading by example, coaching,
participative decision making, informing, and showing concern/
interacting with the team.4 Guides lead by example by climbing
first and modeling behavior, coach towards self-reliance before
and throughout the climb, ask for team input about comfort level,
provide information on weather conditions and route, and show
concern by building caring and supportive relationships.
“You really are building others up, inspiring clients to find in
themselves what they might not have thought themselves capable
of,” says internationally-certified mountain guide Christian
Santelices. “Anybody who comes and wants to climb the moun-
tain has to think that they can make it. Yes, occasionally a guide
has to turn a client back from the summit, but more likely, it’s
‘If you push just a little bit, right here, you’re going to make it
through this, one step at a time. You can do it.’ ”
Edmund Reese, VP and CFO, U.S. Consumer Card Products
at American Express, climbed the Grand Teton as a member
of a guide-led team. “Having leadership responsibility for over
two thousand people,” Reese says, “I've learned that to achieve
our objectives and enjoy the work on the way to success, I must
take the first big step. Generating confidence in the workplace
to ensure that members know that success is attainable and
there will likely be a solution for challenges to come has been
an important focus. The leadership lessons taught both by the
guides and the mountain itself has honed my focus on embrac-
ing the front lines. After the strategy is set, delegate authority
and stay close to those most directly engaged with the work. If
we build leadership in others, we develop a stronger line and an
Setting a common goal, building effective
teams, determining a route, overcoming
adversity – all are essential components of
both mountaineering and business.
overall stronger organisation. This approach has helped us take
very bold steps and reach many objectives.”
4. Guides Facilitate the Development of Trust
Anthony Giddens, a British sociologist, tells us that trust
“always carries the connotation of reliability in the face of con-
tingent outcomes, whether these concern the actions of individ-
uals or the operation of systems.”5 Trust, Giddens says, is “not
the same as faith in the reliability of a person or system; it is
what derives from that faith. Trust is precisely the link between
faith and confidence.”
Guides facilitate the trust-building process from the very
beginning, creating a positive learning environment by model-
ing behavior and providing support. “A climber is never alone
up there, you’re always part of a team,” says guide Jack Turner.
“The first ascents on El Capitan were done by a small group of
climbers who wouldn’t go up without each other. They really
believed in each other, and it was that trust in each member of
the team that allowed them to get up there in situations where
they couldn’t easily get back down. Their trust was based in
shared experience, and a strong set of similar values.”
John Sims, Partner, Managing Director & CFO at Snowden
Lane Partners, reflects on what mountain guides taught him
about trust on his guided climb: “If you don’t trust the person
who has you on belay,” he says, “chances are that you are not
going to get very far. You will slowly inch your way up the
mountain face. The rest of your team are all stuck behind you,
unproductive, until it is their turn to climb the same path, with
the same trust only in their own abilities.”
“Without trust,” Sims says, “you will be painstakingly slower.
The team may run out of daylight well short of the intended goal.
And so it will be in business. Without trust in your teammates,
you will only do as much as your faith in your own limited abil-
ities will take you. You will not risk stretching your own exper-
tise or experience, and you are unlikely to learn as much from
those around you. Each person will revert to being an island,
placing trust only in their own abilities and therefore limiting
individual and corporate horizons.”
5. Guides Manage Risk in an Environment of Uncertainty
Uncertainty is a fact of life in the mountains. It is within this
challenging context that guides have to manage all manner
of risk. Guides know that risk is an inherent part of moun-
tain sports, yet also know that clients actually want to experi-
ence the very real mental and physical challenges that climb-
ing offers. Paul Asel, a professional in the venture capital and
private equity field, writes, “Mountain climbing attracts those
who enjoy stretching beyond perceived limits, and whether a
deterrent or a welcome feature, risk is integral to the calculus of
climbing when testing these limits”.6
www.europeanbusinessreview.com 69
 Leadership
“We offer opportunity to experience
risk – that’s a big part of it,” guide Mark
Newcomb says. “When people come to
climb a mountain, what they are getting
themselves into is a situation in which
they feel uncomfortable and they may per-
ceive a large risk. You can look way down
below and imagine yourself pitching over
the edge. When clients start to feel overly
worried about the exposure, to the point
where they are not doing the right thing,
perhaps freezing up a bit, letting their fear
get the best of them, leaning into the rock
too much, I try to break it down into really
small steps for them. I might say, ‘That
space is an irregular ledge, but it’s larger
than the curb you stand on every day for
the bus!’”
Lyndsey Bunting, now a Senior
Financial Analyst at Birchbox after a stint
in investment banking and as a Peace Corps
volunteer in Panama, made two attempts
on the Grand Teton. She fell ill at 3,500
meters on her first try, but successfully led
her team of climbers to the summit a year
later. “The element of risk-taking applies to
startups in particular,” she says. “In working
at a startup there is risk and uncertainty,
and correctly weighing those against the
potential benefits can make all the differ-
ence. One of our guides said that you can’t
hide on the mountain, meaning that every
fall was public. He mentioned that for re-
lationships where there was a clear hier-
archy (for example, boss to employee) this
experience was often most difficult for the
person in the position of power. No one
wants to fail, and it’s even harder when
there is an imbalance of power in the rela-
tionship. On a more positive note, he men-
tioned that you could always tell a strong
relationship when neither partner is afraid
to fail – when someone isn’t embarrassed
to fall, dusts off, and gets back up again
with the support of their partner.”
6. Guides See the Big Picture
The lure of the summit is strong. Guides
know that their clients want to reach the
top of the mountain, but they also know
70 The European Business Review November - December 2014
that the summit as the only goal isn’t the
best idea for anyone. Wharton School
management professor Michael Useem
writes, “Thinking like the CEO or the
guide does not require brilliance, but it
does necessitate strategic thinking – the
ability to see ahead and see the whole”.7
To guides, the journey to the summit
is not simply something to get through.
Guides have learned to appreciate the un-
certainty of the endeavour as something to
be savoured, and the best guides do what
they can to pass this wise understand-
ing on to summit-focused clients. “The
outcome has to be unknown,” says guide
Wes Bunch. “Most start to see the big
picture as it comes along - it’s the journey
that counts.”
Deborah Garber, a category manager
at Microsoft who was a member of a
climbing team on the Grand Teton, says,
“Reaching the summit at work can mean a
lot of things; executing a successful multi-
million dollar marketing campaign that
meets the metrics you established; learn-
ing an insight about your target market
which you can use as a competitive ad-
vantage; or it can simply be coming in
every day and contributing to growing the
market share of your product. When I re-
alised that I wasn’t passionate about reach-
ing for the same summit any longer, I found
a manager at work who could see the big
picture and who put me on the path for my
next adventure. He helped me figure out
that I wanted to investigate a totally new
function in my next job, and introduced me
to four other leaders across the company.
One of those introductions led to a new job
that has turned into a dream role and has
helped me progress more quickly in my
career than I thought possible.”
Summary
World-class mountain guides develop
and employ six key leadership strengths.
Their work requires them to rapidly build
relationships that will flourish in tough
conditions, provide leadership that ranges
in tone from coaching to directing as the
situation demands, and to assess a cli-
ent’s strengths and find ways to enhance
them. Guides also help clients learn to
trust themselves and their team members
as they make the ascent, and to develop
a sense of comfort in new and unfamiliar
surroundings. Finally, guides inspire us to
reach for the peak, but they also under-
stand the meaning of the journey we are
all on. Business leaders who lead like a
guide will provide the kind of leadership
that supports the vision of the organisa-
tion and uplifts the people who work to
make that vision a reality.
About the Author
Chris Maxwell is a Senior
Fellow, Center for Leadership
and Change Management, at
the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania.
Chris holds a graduate degree in Applied
Positive Psychology from the University of
Pennsylvania, and earned a PhD in Public
Administration from the Pennsylvania
State University. He can be contacted by
Email: maxwellc@wharton.upenn.edu or
on Twitter: @drchrismaxwell
References
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accounts of how business leaders reached their summits. p.
170. (Crown Business. New York, NY).
2. Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Character
strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. pp.
338-339. (American Psychological Association and
Oxford University Press).
3. Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard
Business Review, March-April; pp. 78-90.
4. Arnold, J.A., Arad, S., Rhoades, J.A., & Drasgow, F. (2000).
The empowering leadership questionnaire: The construction
and validation of a new scale for measuring leader behav-
iors. Journal of Organisational Behavior, 21; pp. 249-269.
5. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. p. 33.
(Stanford University Press. Stanford, CA).
6. Asel, P. “Scaling up: Ridge walking from Silicon Valley
to McKinley’s Summit.” Chapter in, Useem, M., Useem, J., &
Asel, P. (2003). Upward Bound: Nine original accounts of
how business leaders reached their summits. p. 118. (Crown
Business. New York, NY).
7. Useem, M. “Thinking like a guide.” Chapter in, Useem, M.,
Useem, J., & Asel, P. (2003). Upward Bound: Nine original
accounts of how business leaders reached their summits. p.
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