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.