NOLS Leadership Skills: Expedition Behaviour

Endurance trapped in pack ice during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

"Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency 

but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, 

get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton." 

Sir Earnest Shackleton is legendary for the most successful failure in Antarctic exploration.  Away from his expeditions, Shackleton's life was generally restless and unfulfilled. In his search for shortcuts to wealth and security, he launched businesses which failed, and he died damaged by alcohol and heavily in debt. 

When it came to Antarctic expeditions, however, there was no one like Shackleton.  

For his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–17, he chose his crew, largely based on his knowledge of what's needed and on his gut.  He was a master of fund-raising.   His ship, Endurance, is a story in herself.  She left the whaling station of Grytviken on the South Georgia Island on December 5, 1914 heading for the southern regions of Antarctica's Weddell Sea.  On January 19, 1915, Endurance became frozen fast in an ice floe.  On October 24, she began taking on water.  On November 21, 1915, Endurance finally slipped beneath the surface.  And that's when the real heroism began.  

Shackleton led his entire crew back to civilization in what is nothing less than a miraculous, remarkable, journey, and which ultimately included even a joyride of a glissade to the whaling station on South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic Ocean.   You can read all about it in Alfred Lansing's, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.  Talk about expedition behavior.

When I took my classic 26-day Outward Bound course, at Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, my instructor was Sam Scott, and our watch name?  Shackleton.  

Last time we introduced the seven NOLS leadership skills.  Today we're looking at the first: expedition behaviour.  You'll remember that the seven skills are part of the 4/7/1 Leadership Education Model that includes four roles and one signature style.  These seven NOLS leadership skills are a holistic skill set to be applied situationally and in combination with each other.  

Then as now, here's what good expedition behavior looks like in the 21st century: 

• Serve the mission and goals of the group. 
• Be as concerned for others as you are for yourself. 
• Treat everyone with dignity and respect.  
• Support leadership and growth in everyone.  
• Respect the cultures you come in contact with.  
• Be kind and open-hearted.  
• Do your share and stay organized.  
• Help others, but don't routinely do their work.  
• Model integrity by being honest and accountable.  
• Say yes and deliver, or say no clearly if you cannot.  
• Resolve conflict in a productive manner.  

Shackleton was forced to land on the wrong side of South Georgia Island.  He then travelled 32 miles (51 km) with two crew members over extremely dangerous mountainous terrain for 36 hours to reach the whaling station at Stromness on May 20, 1916, one year, four months, and one day after Endurance was beset in ice.  Long story short, he went back and got everyone else.  Alive.  Sir Shackleton was a brilliant sea captain, a courageous sailor and a studied master of men.  He knew how to strike the right balance with an intuitive genius that made their "failure" perhaps the most remarkable seafaring success in history. 

Next: Competence 

Note: This is the fourth in an occasional series on leadership, drawing from the NOLS Leadership Education Notebook. The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is a non-profit outdoor education school based in the United States dedicated to teaching environmental ethics, technical outdoors skills, wilderness medicine, risk management and judgment, and leadership on extended wilderness expeditions and in traditional classrooms.  

The Seven NOLS Leadership Skills

Not Jim's actual school bus. 

When I'm not directing wilderness courses for Outward Bound, or guiding outdoor trips locally or running teambuilding at a local university's ropes course, I drive a school bus.  I've gotta say, I love it. 

Aside from the awesomeness of driving a huge vehicle, the kids are... always an adventure.  And if they're not, I inject adventure into my work.  So if I'm driving a sports team to another school for a competition, I get on the P/A system and make like an airline pilot.  "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Airlines flight [insert bus number], flying non-stop to [this other school].  My name is Jim and I will be your pilot today." 

Later, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our descent into [this other school's] airspace.  The weather at [this other school] is 14 degrees (Celsius -- we're in Canada, remember?) and sunny, a perfect day for a [insert this group's school name] victory!"  And everybody cheers. 

Driving a school bus is humbling.  It's not sexy, it's not a six figure job.  But for a dad who's worked with kids his whole life, it's fun as heck.  It's also fertile ground for an essential NOLS leadership skill: tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity.  More on that later.  

In the 4/7/1 NOLS Leadership model, there is one signature style (your own brand of personal awesomeness), four roles (see my last post), and seven essential leadership skills:

They include: 

1. Expedition behaviour -- how you behave on course (or at work, or...) 
2. Competence -- you can always develop more competence 
3. Communications skills -- verbal, non-verbal, written, you name it 
4. Judgment and decision making -- when it's time to pull the trigger 
5. Tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity -- can you shine when the lights go out?  
6. Self-awareness -- know thyself 
7. Vision and Action -- putting feet on your dreams 

By design, the skills are interdependent, they feed off each other, and they build upon one another.  Synergism.  

Next:  Up close and personal: the first of the seven skills.

Note: This is the third in an occasional series on leadership, drawing from the NOLS Leadership Education Notebook. The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is a non-profit outdoor education school based in the United States dedicated to teaching environmental ethics, technical outdoors skills, wilderness medicine, risk management and judgment, and leadership on extended wilderness expeditions and in traditional classrooms.  

NOLS 4/7/1 Leadership: The Four Leadership Roles

Designated leader Sally studies the map while
active followers Anne and Cristina smile actively.  

In its 4/7/1 leadership framework, NOLS identifies four leadership roles.  They make so much sense, they are almost self evident.  Here they are: designated leadership, active followership, peer leadership and self leadership. 

Designated Leadership
The designated leader is the person identified either by the organization or by the group as the one in charge.  On our course, Audra and Sally were the designated leaders.  It was Sally and Audra's responsibility to provide direction, support and content.  For safety, the buck stopped with them.  They may (and did) delegate responsibility, as well as to collaborate.  They never abdicated their role or relinquished responsibility.  The designated leader is accountable.

Active Followership
Huge!  I never thought of it this way.  Active followership is empowering of subordinates in that active followership means that group members are hands on, intentional and supportive of the leaders.  Leaders need followers or they're just taking a walk (John Maxwell).  Any of us who has led knows what it feels like to have someone we know we can count on, versus someone who is a constant drain on our energy, continually questioning, and overall being negative.  Active followers ask for clarification, and direction, and put feet on group goals.

Peer Leadership
We lead our peers when we help each other move forward.  There's no hierarchy here.  We look out for each other.  We hold each other accountable.  We support each other without enabling laziness.  One hand washes the other.
In our tent, we had Rich, Blake and me.  We shared cooking duties.  Each of us had differing strengths.  Rich is an awesome, willing cook!  But he also shared the cooking. Blake set the tone quite literally with his ukulele. I added my two cents where I could.  Sharing tent space and cooking creates instant opportunity to clarify fairness, roles and relationships.

Self-leadership
This is personal management with a leadership twist.  To borrow from the NOLS blog, "Each team member is responsible for demonstrating self leadership: personal initiative, character and attention to one's well-being in order to be a productive member of the group and of the larger society."  In my case, I had come straight off a five day mountaineering course, during which we were nearly killed, with no rest, and right into the nine day NOLS trip leader's course.  I am a good twenty-five years older than most of the other participants, and halfway into the course I hit a wall.  I needed a rest day.  Thankfully, Audra took the young whipper-snappers on a ridgeline tour as Sally stayed at our base camp while a few of us rested up.  Our designated leadership provided a situationally appropriate opportunity for self-leadership.

Next?   We'll start looking at the Seven NOLS Leadership Skills.


Note: This is the second in an occasional series on leadership, drawing from the NOLS Leadership Education Notebook. The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is a non-profit outdoor education school based in the United States dedicated to teaching environmental ethics, technical outdoors skills, wilderness medicine, risk management and judgment, and leadership on extended wilderness expeditions and in traditional classrooms.  NOLS has its own blog post on this topic and you can read it here.  

Leadership and the NOLS 4/7/1 Leadership Education Model

NOLS Trip Leaders, 2017 

Note: This is the first in an occasional series on leadership, drawing heavily from the NOLS Leadership Education Notebook. The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is a non-profit outdoor education school based in the United States dedicated to teaching environmental ethics, technical outdoors skills, wilderness medicine, risk management and judgment, and leadership on extended wilderness expeditions and in traditional classrooms.

If it's good enough for NASA, it's good enough for me.  Actually, I didn't even know that at the time.  As preparation for the space shuttle flight STS-112 in 2002, NASA sent its crew on a NOLS course.  The crew included Commander Jeffrey Ashby, Pilot Pamela Melroy, Mission Specialists David Wolf, Piers Sellers, Sandra Magnus and Russian Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.  It was Commander Jeff Ashby's idea.

Their decision to immerse themselves in an 11-day expedition contributed to the successful 11-day space shuttle mission which included three spacewalks, key space station construction, and delivery of the first of two human-powered carts that will ride along the International Space Station (ISS) railway, providing mobile work platforms for future spacewalking astronauts.  The major objective of STS-112 mission (ISS Assembly Flight 9A) was the delivery of the 45-foot-long (13.7 meters), 15- ton S-One (S1) Truss to the ISS.  And for teamwork and leadership, they started with NOLS.  

The 4/7/1 Leadership Model 

Leadership, says NOLS, is "situationally appropriate action that directs or guides your group to set and achieve goals."  To teach leadership to its students, NOLS uses a framework of four leadership roles, seven leadership skills, and one (your own) signature style.  

NOLS Leadership Educator's Notebook (LEN), p. 10

In the graphic above, where the three spheres of skills, roles and style overlap is where you are meeting your leadership opportunities.  Opportunities are anywhere: in your personal life, within yourself, at work, in recreation, even while going about your day-to-day business for that matter.  

We'll see that the roles are four functions, or "hats" you can wear to help your team reach its goals.  The seven skills are an integrated system of competencies which you can continually develop and improve.  Your signature style is how these fit together for you, so that you can still be you, and which itself is awesome.  You express your own unique awesomeness, now, as a leader.  

If I had a bucket list, attending a NOLS course was definitely on it.  I seized the opportunity last year, and it's had a lasting impact on my personal development.  I am grateful to my instructors, Sally and Audra (Audra instructed the NASA course!), as well as to co-students  Rich, Cristina, Anne Marie, Neil, Francisco, Chris, Zach, and Blake.  Thanks for hanging in with me when I hit the wall, and for the lasting friendships we have forged.