Fix ropes!
I suspect that it’s easy to find analogies between being a great leader and fearlessly climbing mountains, especially if you’re one of the companies that produce those posters that show someone “summiting” Everest, with a pithy saying underneath. I, on the other hand, have a strong fear of heights, so maybe that’s why they don’t have much appeal for me. But I do think that there are two pieces of advice that I imagine are extremely important in mountain climbing that I think are absolutely wrong when it comes to leadership. And they are:
1) Strive relentlessly to get to the top.
2) Don’t ever look down.
I’ve come across a few leaders recently who seem to spend the majority of their time on their careers and “managing up” – trying to please their superiors, tell them what they want to hear, and generally expend all their energy to keep trying to fast track themselves to the top. As you can imagine, that leaves little time to focus on their direct reports, or God forbid, the folks another level down. After all, how are THEY going to help me get to the next open VP or C-level spot that opens up???
And let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not that this is irrational behavior. I’ve seen it work enough to understand why it seems like a sound strategy for managers who believe they are doing ‘whatever it takes’ to get ahead. Good for them!
But if the reason you’re afraid to look down is because you don’t want to see your heel prints on the heads of folks who are supposed to look up to you and respect you, then maybe it’s time to take a break from the climb and see if you can lend a hand to a novice climber instead…
