What Are the 7 Characteristics of Awesome Outdoor Leaders?

Having spent more than a decade in the military, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe how various leaders react to critical situations in the wild. Not every Tom, Dick, and Jane is cut out to be an outdoor leader because it takes particular characteristics and vital core elements to make it. Being out in nature exposes you to many precarious situations and unforeseen challenges.

Outdoor leaders should have a keen sense of adventure, passion for their craft, and a strong inclination to be empathetic. They must be critical thinkers, good decision-makers, and skilled communicators. Core values like integrity, stewardship, and responsibility must be deeply ingrained in them.

In this article, I’ll share with you the personality traits I perceive as essential in an effective outdoor leader. We’ll discuss how these characteristics and core elements can set you apart from the rest and make your experiential pursuits more meaningful, exhilarating, and productive for you and your teams.

The Character of An Excellent Outdoor Leader!

If we pool the best outdoor leaders in one room, there’s a high probability that we’ll easily spot many similarities in their characteristics and personalities. Not everyone is cut out to be an outdoor leader, so if you observe these traits in yourself, chances are you’ll thrive and excel in this field.

If you think you have what it takes to be an excellent outdoor leader, book a free call with us! At Sancus Leadership, we’re always excited about helping future outdoor leaders further enhance their skills and enrich their experiences with experiential training.

Here are some essential personal traits that make up an excellent outdoor leader:

1. Adventurous

This is perhaps the common denominator for all aspiring outdoor leaders. You must have a strong aptitude for adventure because this is where activities in outdoor leadership are grounded on. It would not be uncommon to find outdoor leaders choosing the road less traveled because it offers more adventures and new opportunities for exploration.

Outdoor leaders are essentially intrepid explorers, eager to uncover new secrets in nature, go on daring escapades, and take advantage of all the learnings that the environment has to offer.

2. Passionate

Outdoor leaders are passionate about what they do. They love spending time outdoors, engaging in various adventures and experiential learning, and influencing other people to see and experience for themselves the beauty of nature as well.

Their intense love for the outdoors pushes them to essentially be stewards of the environment. They love connecting people with nature and showing them how to responsibly enjoy all it has to offer. Whether it be through hiking, whitewater rafting, or camping, an outdoor leader can be counted on to extract both fun and learnings from the experience.

3. Proactive

In the outdoors, it’s crucial to identify, anticipate, and prevent potential disasters before they even occur. Sometimes, an outdoor leader’s courage and take-charge attitude can spell the difference between life and death. In this aspect, preparedness is key to being proactive.

Although you’re expected to set goals and map out a plan for your team, you must also be adaptable, especially since nature is very unpredictable. Conditions can change quickly, and you must always be ready to react appropriately to these unforeseen challenges.

Whether it’s about breaking camp early and heading back to town because of a looming storm or altering your hiking route because a team member collapsed from nausea during a particularly steep climb, you, as the leader, must be flexible and willing to adjust to varying circumstances.

4. Strategic Thinker

It’s crucial that outdoor leaders can think on their feet and come up with the smartest and most strategic solutions to difficult situations. Great problem-solving skills and strategic thinking are critical in ensuring that goals are met and your team is always safe and secure in the outdoors. A good leader must be able to quickly assess potential risks to the team and come up with the most viable solutions to problems.

A leader’s decision-making skills are essential, but it doesn’t mean that the whole team must completely rely on the leader for every resolution that needs to be made. Most of the time, transparency is key to forging trust and teamwork, and when it comes to decision-making, openness and honesty will play significant roles in ensuring that the best solutions are formulated and carried out.

5. Effective Communicator

Outdoor leaders must be excellent communicators since spoken words, gestures, signals, and body language can prove to be reliable tools in the wild. You and your team members must always be on the same page and aligned with the goals whenever you’re out on an excursion.

Effective outdoor leaders always ensure that messages are delivered as clearly and accurately as possible. They also take time out from accomplishing other tasks to ensure each team member has a firm grasp on the relevance and importance of the information conveyed.

In my 12 years in the military, strong communication skills were always at the forefront of effective leadership. Troop leaders made sure that all pertinent messages were concisely delivered at the start of each morning and that all team members have fully absorbed all the information. They leave no room for misconceptions, doubts, and confusion.

Regular check-ins are common to verify that the team remains in sync and aligned with the set objectives. Whenever necessary, proactive leaders demonstrate exactly what needs to be done to further avoid potential problems that stem from mix-ups and misinterpretations.

6. Empathetic

The best outdoor leaders are those that exhibit high levels of emotional intelligence, capable of discerning and controlling their own feelings and sentiments. They also have strong interpersonal skills, and can easily show empathy to their team members by being sensitive to their needs and feelings.

Empathetic outdoor leaders spend time and exert effort in building relationships and being aware of their team members’ strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. They display authenticity in the way they deal with others and listen actively to their insights and concerns. They learn from their experiences, ensuring that complications will not be repeated and conflicts are quickly resolved so that the team stays on track toward the attainment of common goals.

7. Demonstrates Strong Outdoor Leadership Core Values

Your core values are the basic aspects, foremost priorities, and guiding principles that define your brand of leadership. These are what set you apart from the rest and establish you as a reliable, effective, and worthy leader.

Here are some of the core values inherent in the best outdoor leaders:

Trust. It is essential for a team exploring the wild outdoors to trust one another, most especially their leader. To foster trust, outdoor leaders must first earn their team’s trust by showing they’re worthy of it. This can be done by ensuring their words and actions display honesty, respectability, fairness, and transparency.
Integrity. A leader with high moral and ethical standards can quickly earn the trust and deference of the team.
Stewardship. Good outdoor leaders always keep in mind that they are the stewards of their team and the protector of nature. They see to it that their team members’ needs are addressed. They promote and inculcate the gravity of preserving nature by doing simple tasks such as picking up litter, respecting wildlife, and helping to conserve the environment.
Taking ownership. Outdoor experiences place people in situations where mistakes, misunderstandings, and confusion can bring about disastrous consequences. Taking responsibility for your actions, whether good or bad, is crucial in outdoor leadership because it is a powerful way to earn your team’s trust and respect.

4 Famous Outdoor Leaders and Their Fascinating Stories!

It isn’t surprising when we hear about men and women so captivated by the beauty and majesty of nature that they’ve practically built their lives around it. The outdoors can be an excellent training ground for building the toughest, most resilient, and highly efficient leaders. Some have gone on to explore other industries and have shown that the skills and experiences they acquired in the wild can easily translate into boosting their confidence in other fields.

The famous leaders we’ll talk about today are Jim Whittaker, Andrew King, Jenny Bruso, and Jimmy Chin. These 4 exceptional outdoor leaders have carved a niche in their chosen fields. Their grit, persistence, and competence have helped them work toward becoming influential members of society.

I’ll walk you through a brief background of each of these prominent personalities, and we’ll discover how the know-how and experiences they gained in the outdoors were pivotal in helping them become successful in their endeavors. We’ll also talk about their contributions to society and how they’re able to help bring the wonders of the outdoors closer to the rest of the world. Let’s start!

Famous Outdoor Leaders

At Sancus Leadership, we take pride in helping leaders from various industries become the best versions of themselves and reach their highest potential. If you’re curious about how experiential training can help hone your leadership skills, book us a free leadership call. We’re excited to share with you the benefits of outdoor training!

Here are some of the most famous outdoor leaders from whom you can gain much insights and inspiration:

1. James W. Whittaker

Known as the first American to climb Mt. Everest, he planted his country’s flag on the summit in 1963, and along with the rest of his team, earned global recognition for this amazing feat.

However, Jim, as he was fondly called by most of his peers, not only was able to scale the intense 29,029 feet up to the summit — he was also able to do so despite running out of oxygen. In fact, he was gasping for air as he stood on Everest’s peak because his oxygen bottle was completely empty.

Jim has a twin brother, Lou, another avid outdoorsman. They joined The Mountaineers club at the age of 16 and started climbing mountains, even throughout their busy college years with Jim pursuing a degree in Biology.

In the 1960s, he became the president and CEO of Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), a small co-op that offered hard-to-find mountaineering gear. By the time he retired in 1979, REI was already a $46 million company with multiple branches nationwide and over 700 employees.

Jim can be partly credited for REI’s phenomenal growth in the 1950s due to his remarkable contributions in sales. His resolute, resilient attitude translated into how efficiently he functioned in his roles while scaling Mt. Everest. He was the equipment coordinator and was certainly not the most accomplished among the 20 men in the expedition. He made up for it, though, with sheer determination, excellent physical strength, and optimism.

Whittaker and 4 of his other companions were the first among the group to reach the summit. Despite battling through a storm and a blizzard, both of which forced them to practically crawl their way through, they reached Mt. Everest’s peak with empty oxygen bottles and frozen-solid water bottles. With 1 eye suffering from frostbite, Jim planted the American flag on the ice and spent roughly 20 minutes with his group enjoying the exhilarating experience.

Jim Whittaker’s mountain adventures didn’t end here. He went on to scale other peaks, and in 1990, he led an expedition on Mt. Everest dubbed International Peace Climb. The expedition’s aim was to gather climbers from the US, China, and the Soviet Union — rival countries in the Cold War.

His diplomacy, excellent conflict resolution and negotiation skills, candidness, and perseverance paid off, and his 30-man team from 3 conflicting nations was finally able to set out for Everest. 20 climbers from this expedition successfully reached the summit, making Whittaker’s Peace Climb the most successful Mt. Everest expedition so far. They’re also applauded for eliminating nearly 2 tons of accumulated trash from previous climbs.

In Jim Whittaker’s autobiography, A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond, he wrote:

“If you stick your neck out, whether it’s by climbing mountains or speaking up for something you believe in, your odds of winning are at least fifty-fifty. If you take risks with preparation and care, you can increase those odds significantly in your favor. On the other hand, if you never stick your neck out, your odds of losing are pretty close to 100 percent.”

2. Andrew King

Explorer Andrew King is on his way to becoming renowned worldwide as the first African-American climber to conquer the Volcanic Seven Summits (the world’s seven tallest volcanoes) — Kilimanjaro, Ojos del Salado, Pico de Orizaba, Giluwe, Elbrus, Damavand, Mount Sidley — and the Seven Summits (the highest peaks of each of the world’s continents) — Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Vinson, Elbrus, Wilhelm.

He’s also an alpinist, free diver, and avid surfer. What’s great about Andrew is he utilizes his love for the outdoors, skills, and talents to promote positive changes in society. He is able to unite his personal and professional goals toward supporting and empowering others, as well as spearheading meaningful and purposeful projects.

He believes in fostering sustainable relationships with worthy non-profit and humanitarian organizations. He actively searches for opportunities to share his thoughts on climate change, sexual inequality, racism, and economic barriers.

What is perhaps most noteworthy about Andrew King’s social endeavors is that he’s the founder of The Between Worlds Project Foundation, a non-profit organization that offers assistance to individuals and communities in gaining digital media exposure. Through this foundation, he promotes connections, compassion, and collaboration. He strives to break down societal walls, offer hope, and provide better opportunities for people from all walks of life.

3. Jenny Bruso

Outdoor adventures were typically reserved for slim and fit individuals, those that fit the classic profile of a daring explorer. Jenny Bruso, an avid outdoor enthusiast herself, has been working hard at altering this slanted perspective through her hiking club, Unlikely Hikers. Founded in 2016, this inclusive outdoor club welcomes all individuals regardless of gender, race, disabilities, body type, or outdoor experience.

Being plus-sized, someone who identifies as queer, and a late bloomer in outdoor pursuits, Jenny experienced different forms of discrimination when she first started spending more time in nature back in 2012. Through her organization, she’s able to break down the walls and encourage everyday, unrepresented outdoor enthusiasts to be more active in the world of the outdoors.

Jenny Bruso taps various social media platforms to share her group’s diverse experiences and insights in this more inclusive outdoor culture that they’re striving to firmly establish. You can find out more about Unlikely Hikers’ explorations via Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and various podcasts.

4. Jimmy Chin

Jimmy Chin is a professional skier and mountaineer, and a photographer, published author, and filmmaker to boot. His film, Free Solo, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2019, and he released his first New York Times Best-Selling book, There and Back: Photographs from the Edge, in 2021.

As a long-time member of The North Face Athlete team, he has explored all 7 continents, led various climbing and skiing expeditions across the globe, and has established for himself quite an admirable summation of historic climbs and outdoor achievements.

Among these is his distinction for being the first American, along with Kit and Rob DesLauriers, to successfully ski-descend from the summit of Mt. Everest in 2006. In 2011, along with Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk, Jimmy was able to capture the first ascent of Shark’s Fin, a notorious granite wall found in Meru Peak, India.

Together with his wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, he has produced documentaries and films that help shine the spotlight on outdoor culture. He has also collaborated with big brands, such as The North Face, Ford, Yeti, Apple, Chase, Bose, and Panerai.

Jimmy Chin is one of the most sought-after adventure photographers worldwide. He has a knack for capturing stunning images even in the middle of high-risk situations.

Sources

6 Reasons Why Some People Don’t Like To Lead!

In my 12 years as a leader, I have seen countless individuals not growing in their professional lives simply because they fear the added duties and accountabilities that come with taking that next step in their careers. Some also doubt their leadership capabilities. In reality, they’re not only robbing themselves of the opportunity to grow and achieve their full potential — they’re also denying their organizations the possibility of further flourishing with elevated leadership.

Some people don’t like to lead because leadership comes with added responsibilities and stress. You have to look out for your team, ensure they’re engaged and productive, and be accountable for them. Some people also dislike always being in the spotlight, vulnerable to criticism and scrutiny.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why some people who are capable of leading choose not to. We’ll discuss why the added responsibilities, stress, and sense of accountability may turn some people off. We’ll also tap into the possibility that some people just don’t appreciate the idea of being in charge of a team.

Why Do People Not Like To Lead?

Every now and then, you might bump into people who seem so well put together, responsible, efficient, skilled, and experienced, and you find yourself wondering, “Why aren’t they growing professionally?” These people may be holding the same position at their companies for years already, and you might understandably assume they’re being overlooked by management.

However, you may be surprised to find out that there are a lot of people who say no to leadership roles even if they are highly suitable and perhaps ideal for the position. Some people choose to stay put simply because they don’t like to lead.

At Sancus Leadership, we acknowledge that leaders can make a huge difference in a business’ trajectory. If you’re one of those currently on the fence about pursuing your leadership goals, schedule a free leadership call so we can help you find the best part forward. A strong, efficient leader can take a company to new heights, and you just might be the one your company has been waiting for.

Here are some of the most popular reasons why some people steer clear of leadership roles:

1. They Don’t Want Added Responsibility

When you take on a leadership role, you’re expected to establish your team’s goals, map out a route to get there, make sound decisions, handle conflicts, and ensure that your team members are engaged, productive, and in sync with the rest of the group. All the pressure that comes with being a leader can be too overwhelming for some people.

Decision-making, in particular, is a huge responsibility that comes with leadership. A good decision that results in favorable scenarios for the team will paint you as an efficient, reliable leader, capable of leading the team toward success. On the other hand, a bad decision that leads to disastrous consequences will depict you as an unreliable, incompetent leader who might lead your team straight to failure.

2. They Don’t Like Being in the Spotlight

When you’re leading and managing a team, expect to almost always be in the limelight. Whatever behaviors, decisions, and strategies you exhibit, all these will be met with either applause or disapproval. Expect others, especially your peers and higher management, to be extremely vocal about their thoughts and feedback.

As a leader, you must be ready and capable of absorbing scrutiny and criticism without letting these affect you personally. Some people may never be comfortable with such scenarios and may find them immensely taxing and stressful.

3. They Don’t Want To Take Responsibility for Other People

Managing a group of people calls for you to be responsible for their actions and decisions. This means you’ll be accountable for their triumphs as well as their failures. Some people find this idea daunting and would much rather take ownership just of their own work.

This calls to mind the story a friend shared about her coworker, Ben, who was offered a leadership position in their firm but instantly declined because the mere thought of leading his own team “made his hands clammy and his heart pound.”

Ben was always the highest sales performer on the team, so it came as no surprise to anyone that he was offered the promotion. However, everyone was shocked when he declined. Ben reasoned that an experience with a previous boss made him practically vow to himself that he’d never take on a leadership role.

Ben shared that he got stuck for 5 extra days in Batanes, an island in the Philippines, when a storm hit and all flights were canceled. Since he couldn’t make it in time for an important client meeting, his boss stood in for him. To cut the long story short, the client’s and Ben’s boss’ personalities completely clashed, and the client walked out that day saying he’ll look for better partnership opportunities elsewhere.

Upper management didn’t like what happened because landing that deal with this big client was practically a done deal. They put all the blame on Ben’s boss and gave him a hard time about it for months. The boss eventually left the company because of the intense and unnecessary pressure he was experiencing.

Like Ben, many people don’t want to be accountable for other people’s shortcomings, mistakes, and in this case, bad luck. They’re happier and content with just taking responsibility for their own decisions, actions, and faults.

4. They Don’t Have the Patience To Deal With Others

When you’re a leader, you’re expected to motivate your team and ensure that they stay engaged, cooperative, and productive. When your team members lose the drive to perform and excel, it is your responsibility to get them back on track.

You’re also expected to efficiently handle disputes and not let them escalate into full-blown dilemmas. As well, you have to be reliable in leading your team through crises so your team comes out of them stronger and eager to get back into the game.

Some people simply don’t have the courage (and willingness) to deal with other people’s quirks, idiosyncrasies, and moods. They don’t have the patience to address others’ needs and consider aspects outside of work that may be affecting them, such as personal issues, health conditions, or family matters. They may also lack the confidence to mentor and coach others, a necessary trait in an effective leader.

5. They Don’t Want To Be the Proverbial Bad Guy

Some people associate leaders with being pushy, dominating, and aggressive. This is why this same group of people typically shy away from leadership roles. They simply don’t want to be the bad guy.

There is a certain level of risk to your social relationships when you become a leader. You can’t do favors for your friends because this might be considered inappropriate. You have to be fair with your criticisms when giving sanctions for bad behavior, even if these concern your previous teammates in the company. You cannot share privileged information with your friends because certain matters must strictly be kept confidential and available only to management.

Some people might find it hard to transition from being the “all-around good guy” at work into being an efficient, resolute, and committed leader.

6. The Job Is Just Too Stressful

Some people really aren’t cut out for a leadership role even if they exhibit most of the competencies that say they do. Some are intent on keeping a healthy work-life balance, and they know that being a leader will force them to make certain sacrifices in their personal lives.

A leadership role demands a lot of time and focus. As you go deeper into your role, you might find yourself spending quite a number of late nights at work instead of enjoying dinner with your family at home. You might be working on resolving conflicts at the workplace on a weekend instead of going on that long-awaited fishing trip with your buddies.

In this 2009 study involving teachers in Arkansas who didn’t want to pursue careers in school administration, particularly to eventually become principals at their schools, it was found that 91% identified stress and 86% pointed at the necessity to clock in more time at work as the main deterrents for pursuing a promotion.

The same can be said for qualified employees in an organizational business setting. Some people are just not willing to sacrifice their family, vacation, recreation, and vacation time for a more prestigious yet much more taxing and grueling leadership role at work.

Is Trust Something That’s Built or Given?

Most people have strong feelings about trust, and if you’re one of those who have been burned by it and find it extremely tricky to navigate, you’re not alone. A lot of people, including me, know what it feels like when trust is broken and you end up feeling betrayed and abused. That’s why trust has become a precious commodity that people fiercely safeguard and prudently bestow.

Trust is something built over time, never given for free. However, note that no matter how hard you work at building and earning it, if the other person doesn’t see you as worthy, trust will never be granted. The truth is, trust can only be given after you’ve earned and built it over time.

Let’s delve deeper into why trust should always be built, earned, and worked hard for before you can expect anyone to grant it to you. We will also discuss why consistency is imperative in a high-trust work environment and what you can do to ensure your team doesn’t lose their trust in you. Remember, it’s often harder to regain trust than build it.

The Biggest Mix-Up About Trust

Trust is a strong belief in the other person’s character and abilities. It’s when you place your complete confidence in the accuracy of a statement, belief, or situation such that you confidently expect everything will pan out as anticipated.

In any situation, the trust-giver is in control of who they grant their trust to. It can never be forced or demanded from them.

Most people think trust is something built and earned over time, but this argument is flawed because the truth of the matter is, no matter how hard or how long you work for trust, if the trust-giver doesn’t deem you worthy, trust will never be given to you.

This is why some people feel indignant and resentful, even insulted, when the trust they’ve been working hard for is not given to them. Relationships are tarnished, business deals are terminated, and friendships are shattered, all because the trust-receiver believes it’s not fair that trust still isn’t given despite all their efforts.

In business, harboring this huge misconception about trust can be extremely detrimental. For an organization to function synergistically, seamlessly, and efficiently, trust must be at the core of team dynamics. Leaders must trust their team members, team members must trust their leaders, and team members must also trust one another. If trust can’t be built, earned, and given, the organization is at risk of failure.

Why Trust Is Crucial in the Workplace

Building (and giving) trust is necessary for harmonious and productive relationships in the workplace. It’s also one of the key ingredients in the formula for encouraging lasting relationships — a critical aspect in the business world that can be advantageous to you in the long run.

Cultivating trust in your work culture lets you enjoy these benefits:

Employees feel safe sharing ideas
Employees eagerly help each other out
Promotes an overall sense of well-being and helps with preserving mental health
Helps everyone enjoy peace of mind at work
Better collaboration and engagement
Better work performance (organizations with a high-trust culture perform almost twice as much in terms of company earnings as their contemporaries in the industry)
Lower employee turnover (employees are 16% less likely to stay in their current organizations if they don’t feel comfortable sharing insights and feedback with their leaders)

How To Build Trust (So Others Give It To You)

As a leader, it is your job to build trust and earn it so that your team members grant you their trust once they deem you worthy of it. At Sancus Leadership, we promote a high-trust culture within business teams because it is a core value that may make or break an organization. When you’re ready to know more about how you can establish trust within your team, book us a free leadership call, and we’ll get the ball rolling for you!

Here are some tips to get you started on creating a strong culture of trust in your team:

1. Be Consistent

Trust is never truly earned through isolated kind deeds or random grand gestures. It has to be built continuously and steadily over time. You must be able to make the trust-giver feel that it’s safe to be unguarded, exposed, and vulnerable with you.

Remember, the work doesn’t end when trust is finally granted. You have to keep working at it because the trust-giver, at any point in time, can suddenly decide that you’re not worth the risk involved with the trust. Just a small sign of dishonesty or deception can make them quickly change their mind about you.

2. Be an Active Listener

It’s not enough that you listen to your team’s insights, concerns, and plans. It’s crucial that you listen actively rather than passively so they’ll feel that you’re invested in them.

Your team members should be able to freely talk to you about any misgivings or insecurities they may be harboring. They should feel safe opening up to you and sharing ideas without fearing unfair judgment, ridicule, or utter disregard.

When you truly listen to your team, they’ll likely listen to you as well when it’s your turn to share insights, ideas, doubts, and fears. They’ll also develop a healthy respect for you and find it easier to defer to your guidance and leadership.

3. Lead with Integrity

Build trust and credibility in your team by leading them always with honesty, openness, and transparency. Make sure your team members are always informed and updated on crucial and relevant organizational issues. Consistently share information, whether good or bad, to make them feel that they’re your allies in business and not just your followers.

Follow through with your actions so your team knows you’re as good as your word. If you establish the reputation that people can always believe whatever you say, trust will not be hard to give.

Just as important as staying true to your promises is not promising something that you can’t deliver. This is a quick deal breaker, and all your efforts may go to waste if your team senses inconsistency in you.

Leading with integrity sends the message to your team that you’re someone worthy of their respect. They’ll find it easier to trust someone who they know will always act in their best interests.

4. Take Ownership of Your Work

Learn from failures and shortcomings and show your team the value of humility and taking ownership of your work. By doing so, you’re showing your team members that taking risks shouldn’t be extremely daunting because failures are part and parcel of trying.

Furthermore, when they fail, always extend your support and guidance. Make each failure a learning experience from which your team members can glean valuable firsthand insights. Let them know that you always have their backs and you’ll always help them get back on track whenever they stumble.

5. Lead By Example

Give them an excellent role model to emulate — you! This is a great way to inspire your team members to always aim to become better versions of themselves while showing them that you’re an honorable, dependable, and virtuous leader worthy of their trust.

During my time in the military, I found trust to be an indispensable core value that must be cultivated with peers, subordinates, and superiors. It’s imperative that we had confidence in each other and knew that we always had each other’s backs. Trust in each other is what enabled us to become lionhearted and stay the course.

As a leader, I made sure that trust always started with me, especially when leading a new team or if there were new members in my team. One of my main strategies to earn my team’s confidence was leading with empathy. I always made an effort to understand and share their feelings, never invalidating or deriding any of them. It was a great way to show my team how I expect them to act towards others as well.

Key Takeaways

Building trust in the workplace is necessary for efficiency, growth, and success. It’s also crucial in helping establish strong bonds within the organization that are crucial to ensuring synergy, collaboration, and engagement.

Think long-term when striving to foster trust in your team. It may be extremely challenging to build, but never sit on your laurels once you earn it. Trust is a continuous work in progress that demands consistency, integrity, and purposefulness.

Experienced Leaders’ Advice to New Managers! (a Qualitative Study)

In one of our recent studies (Sancus Leadership), we asked experienced small team leaders about the biggest mistakes they made as new leaders and what they’ve learned along the way. You might be surprised at what we learned.

Experience leaders’ advice to new managers includes not trusting your gut, assuming extreme ownership, creating boundaries, delegating everything you can, and prioritizing ruthlessly. Failure to implement these tips leads to teammates losing trust in the leader and higher stress levels than necessary.

Today I will discuss the results of a large study we performed regarding the first day, first week, 30 days, and 90 days of holding a managerial position. Here are 10 pieces of advice for new managers!

1. Don’t Assume That You Know Better and More Than Your Team

“Belief that position (being a manager) automatically gives ability and knowledge that exceeds other staff.”

This leads to a sense of superiority because it might seem that you have a higher value than others at the company. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. However, you might be harder to replace since you hopefully have leadership training, and the company has invested a lot of money into you.

But that is only true if you take a long-term business perspective, which I think your superiors want you to do. Doing this might help you realize that one of those employees might be the next CEO or the person with the next big idea allowing the organization to grow into something sustainable over the long term.

We should treat our co-workers not only concerning who they are today but also who they can become tomorrow.

2. Remember That Not All Decisions Need to “Feel” Good

“Just because you don’t like the decision you’re about to make doesn’t mean it’s not the right decision to make.”

There’s an illusion that every decision should feel good. “Trust your gut,” they say. But to be honest, in my 12 years in the army, many decisions felt really bad at the moment but turned out to be valid.

The Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman, writes in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow,

“Trusting your intuition, AKA a decision that feels good, should only be done when the situation meets specific criteria, such as when the problem is predictable, you have experience in the field, and when feedback is instant.”

If this is not the case, you should take a step back and use a slower, more systematic approach to making decisions. When you want to improve your decision-making, I suggest you book a free leadership call with me to see if we should work together.

3. Choose Your Enemies Wisely

“If you are going to work in a larger organization, do not create an ‘us vs. them’ feeling towards the rest of the organization, as it doesn’t benefit the group’s overall thinking.”

I often see organizations try to create healthy competition. But they usually end up in a situation where it’s more important that the other team loses than that their team wins.

Unhealthy competition is not what you want for a company. While competition that improves productivity is good, the problem usually lies within employees connected to the bigger picture if there’s no net gain.

In the army, this is relatively common, as platoons fight over who is the best. But as soon as you go on deployment together, everyone is a solid team with a complete understanding of who the real enemy is.

All competition between departments and teams must be aimed at outperforming other companies. If not, the competition is deemed unhealthy and should be avoided.

This is not easy to do, and that’s why most managers fail to create healthy competition. If you want to talk to someone with 12 years of experience making healthy competition within organizations, you should book a call with us now.

4. When There’s a Problem, You Must Fix It

“If you’re unhappy with someone in the group regarding behavior or performance, tell them and help them reach the goals. If that doesn’t work, think about a solution, as the problems won’t go away by themselves. Again, the group exists to solve assigned tasks.”

As a leader, you might be tempted to present yourself in a way where you don’t make any mistakes, but this is a misstep that you definitely want to avoid. It’s impossible to never make mistakes, so if you present yourself in that way, everyone, and I really mean everyone, will see through it.

This will quickly diminish trust and the confidence that your employees have in your ability to lead the team and reflect negatively upon you from the more experienced leaders above you.

A much better way is to avoid the blame game and instead take extreme ownership, as Jocko Willink put it. When it goes wrong, own it and own up to it, no matter what.

5. Restriction Is Freedom

Parkinson’s law tells us that no matter how much time we have, the work will expand to fill it.

So the more time we have to complete something, the longer it takes.

We will use all the available resources to complete the task, but that doesn’t mean the results are better. You could even argue that the outcome is less favorable. This is also where the Pareto distribution comes into place, as 5% of the time spent solving the task results in 80% of the wanted outcomes.

Those who don’t understand these principles will find themselves overworked, underpaid, and with a loss of engagement in the task.

Honoring the Pareto principle and Parkinson’s law means putting boundaries on how we spend our time. Nothing needs to be better than good enough, but the question is, what is good enough?

If you’re striving for perfection, you’re wasting your time. Good enough gets the job done, allowing you to do more things and be more productive, or just take a break and recover so you can do things better for longer.

6. Clearly Visualize Your Plan

“Visualize your plan so that it can be questioned by all members. Not to criticize but to help the group solve the task.”

Communication is a fancy word that gets thrown around by leadership consultants that don’t know what the specific problem is. The specific problem is usually that leaders are unable to visually represent their plans in a way that can be understood instantly by the intended audience.

Giving instructions through text and speeches isn’t as effective as creating decision-making trees or following a standardized briefing template with figures and symbols instead of walls of text.

In the Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams, I developed a standardized way of doing threat assessments and how to visualize it together with the plan to my team in under 8 minutes. This is no easy task, but if done correctly means that you can release your people to do their thing independently since now they know exactly what is needed to complete the mission.

Do you have a standardized briefing template so that you can visualize complex, high-risk plans with your team? If you don’t, it’s probably time to reach out and book a call with us!

7. Delegate All That’s Possible, Do Only What’s Needed

“Too much detail management; let the guys fix it and trust it gets done.”

Micromanagement–we all know the word, and we all think we don’t do it. But let me ask you this: How often do you check on your team? Once per hour, twice per day?

If you can’t let your team members work independently for at least two days, I would suggest something is wrong. Either the structure of your business isn’t set up in a way that allows people to solve problems as they arise, or it can arise from a lack of mandate, trust, or fear of being punished if something goes wrong.

Running a team this way is slow and sequential, and things lay around waiting to be “approved” by a manager.

But what if you delegated the “task of approving,” and employees could check themselves? This is how a high-performance team operates. Each individual knows and is trusted with their tasks, and they have clear mandates that tell them exactly when to contact management, not too often, not too sparsely.

This makes work faster and more productive!

8. Give As Much As You Request

“Acting selfishly, feigning expertise, asking more from one’s subordinates than oneself.”

Don’t ask others what you’re unwilling to give yourself. This is a golden rule of good leadership, and those who don’t implement it will quickly see bitterness manifest in the business.

Last week, a friend told me a story about her boss. When the entire team was working overtime, this toxic boss decided to leave early so that she could make it to the planned after-work event.

When arriving, she sent a photo to the team chat showing a drink in a fancy restaurant. This, of course, upset everyone on the team since they were busting their asses to finish the tasks that she set up for the team.

Don’t be that manager. If you think someone should give their all, you should be prepared to do the same! A great leadership trait is to lead by example.

9. Decide What Needs to Die

“Prioritizing doesn’t mean ranking, but rather removing.”

Just putting things further up or down on a list will surely make you and your people overworked and underpaid.

My toughest everyday mistake as a leader is choosing what things are not worth doing. This usually means saying no to someone higher up the chain of command, which often comes with conflict.

But if you don’t, you can bet the house that it will lead to overworking your team, and sooner or later, people will drop off. Trying to solve all the tasks that come your way is not only ineffective but also irresponsible and foolish.

But let me give you a million-dollar tip.

Figure out which tasks are worth doing and which nobody will neither check nor have any impact if they are left undone.

Tip number one: Ask if you can do it three weeks from now. When you get the answer that it needs to be done now, respectfully ask what the consequences are if it gets done later. More often than not, people start twisting and turning and can’t come up with an answer.

Perfect, now you should have three more weeks to complete the task.

Tip number two: If you get your three weeks, analyze whether a) the task will have a positive impact on the business and b) task completion will be checked by a superior. If you say no to both of these, don’t do the task.

If you find that the task needs to be completed, do it as late as you can, and hope that the situation changes so that the task becomes obsolete, making you a timesaver master.

If it is urgent and needs to be done right now, then dedicate all available resources and finish it as best as you can as fast as you can. This is a high-priority situation!

Conclusion

New managers often think they’re far superior to everyone on their team and that they don’t need to improve. Or, they might think they need to make sure everything needs to be done or even micromanaged. If they were to relax a little, they might be able to inspire their team to be more productive in less time.

If this sounds like what you want, schedule a call with me today!

7 Steps to Becoming an Excellent Outdoor Leader!

I often hear people saying that the outdoors is all about fun, but I see it as an excellent training ground for future leaders (especially in business)! I have seen the outdoors unpredictability and unique challenges bring out a person’s strengths, forcing them to work around their weaknesses and see opportunities even when facing critical situations. Working on your outdoor leadership skills can seamlessly translate into how well you lead your team in business.

To become an excellent outdoor leader, you must be skilled in various outdoor activities, an excellent communicator, and a resilient team player. You must also learn to adapt to changing scenarios and your team’s diverse needs. Furthermore, you must be empathetic, consistent, and a critical thinker.

Let’s probe deeper into what it truly takes to be an excellent outdoor leader, specifically the skills, competencies, and mindset you must learn to enhance and adopt. I will talk about why it’s crucial to tailor-fit your approach depending on changing scenarios and your team member’s varying personalities. I will also discuss the value of leading by example and establishing yourself as someone your team can trust.

How Can I Be a Good Outdoor Leader?

Sancus Leadership on our life changing expedition-styled leadership development program! — Join us at Sancus Leadership on our life-changing expedition-styled leadership development program!

Spending time in the wild outdoors can be thrilling and unnerving. Some people may not realize it, but the time they spend outdoors can be utilized as opportunities to build and enhance skills that can translate into being more effective as leaders in the workplace.

Spending time in nature and engaging in physical activities, adventures, and expeditions can significantly enhance your leadership skills. These can also help keep your team motivated, engaged, and committed to the set goals.

Spending time in nature and engaging in physical activities, adventures, and expeditions can significantly enhance your leadership skills.

Here are the steps to becoming an excellent outdoor leader:

1. Determine Your Leadership Style

There is no specific leadership style best suited for outdoor settings. When you group diverse people together, you’ll generally deal with different personalities, varying quirks, and unique requirements.

In effectively leading a group, outdoor leaders must be able to tailor-fit their approach to their group’s unique needs and wants. They must also be able to adapt to varying scenarios to apply the most suitable leadership style in any given situation.

Here are some of the most popular leadership styles to consider:

Autocratic leadership style. Autocratic leaders depend on their own judgment and perspectives and rarely consider other people’s points of view. When faced with dilemmas, they come up with solutions and make decisions independently. They also dictate the group’s routines, such as wake-up time, route, pitstops, and sleeping time.
Democratic leadership style. Democratic leaders are perhaps the most fair, considerate, and collaborative of all. They typically consult their team and consider their perspectives and insights before making decisions. They may also sometimes arrive at a group consensus when trying to find the best possible solutions to pressing problems.
Laissez-faire leadership style. Laissez-faire leaders allow their team members the most freedom to plan, work out problems, and decide for themselves with minimal interference from their leaders. This hands-off approach encourages critical thinking, enhances problem-solving skills, and trains team members to cultivate their leadership potential.
Charismatic leadership style. Charismatic leaders inspire their team members to always be efficient, enterprising, ambitious, and productive by setting good examples for them to emulate. By always being enthusiastic and engaging, they create a positive team culture where members enjoy high morale and boosted energy levels.
Coaching leadership style. Coaching leaders focus more on their team members rather than on quickly achieving their desired results. Their main goal is to guide their members in improving themselves and reaching their highest potential.

2. Work on Your Communication Skills

Effective communication is critical in outdoor settings. It’s practically a matter of life and death that instructions be conveyed explicitly and goals be well-defined and accurately conveyed. A leader with great interpersonal and communication skills can ensure that the whole team is consistently on the same page – a crucial factor that can dictate a team’s (or a business’s) survival and success.

A leader with great interpersonal and communication skills can ensure that the whole team is consistently on the same page – a crucial factor that can dictate a team’s (or a business’s) survival and success.

When I was in the military, the value of effective communication was so deeply ingrained in us that we developed the critical habit of constantly checking in on one another, ensuring that we’re always all on the same page, especially when navigating through tricky or highly sensitive situations. One simple misunderstanding could spell the difference between life and death.

We made sure everyone knew enough details of every route we took so that in case someone had to fall back or abort a mission, the team wouldn’t fall apart. We ensured each person was aware of what had to be accomplished each day so that if someone was unavailable for a specific task, someone else could always step up to the plate to fill the gap.

Constant and concise communication was one of the factors that ensured our team was always safe and secure during deployment. It also helped propel us faster toward attaining the goals and objectives set out for us by our commanders. The team leader holds a pivotal role in ensuring that the entire team is always well-informed and updated on all matters pertaining to the group and the expedition. Now that I´m in the business world, I have realized that this also holds true here.

Here are some tips for effective communication as a leader:

Set clear goals. Setting clear goals and ensuring that each individual in your group has a solid grasp of them is one of the first steps in ensuring your team functions as efficiently as possible. If your team isn’t on the same page, efforts may go to waste, mix-ups will be routine, and you may find your team constantly lagging behind. We use and recommend the SMARTER framework to get started.
Be direct. Avoid using jargon, rhetorical statements, or flowery language. Be concise and direct so your team knows exactly what you mean. Leave no room for doubts and confusion.
Be authentic. Honesty, sincerity, and integrity are important core values in leadership. By being authentic, you’ll quickly and easily gain your team’s respect and trust. Be eloquent, but never pretend to be someone you’re not — your team will see right through the facade and won’t appreciate your pretense.
Listen. Remember, communication is a 2-way street. Effective communicators are good listeners, so always take time to validate and listen to your team’s concerns, questions, and apprehensions. Listening allows you to understand their perspectives and opens the doors to transparency and better alignment within the team.
Ask questions. Make it a habit to ask your team questions to ensure they can absorb essential information accurately. This is crucial in outdoor settings where minor errors can quickly lead to disastrous consequences.

3. Learn to Be Resilient

Nature is unpredictable and constantly changing. You may continually face unexpected challenges, shifting weather conditions, unfamiliar terrain, and unforeseen opportunities. Additionally, outdoor activities are almost always extremely challenging and exhausting, both physically and mentally.

Effectively leading and managing a team means you must be able to adapt to various situations so you can efficiently lead them forward, never succumbing to the difficulties and obstacles encountered along the way. You must also be able to quickly bounce back from problems and setbacks so these challenges don’t hold the team back.

Furthermore, an excellent outdoor leader must maintain a positive outlook throughout all these trials to inspire the rest of the team to emulate the same mindset. You must show your team that you don’t easily give up and back down from even the trickiest and most complicated scenarios.

4. Focus On Fostering Strong Teamwork

Teamwork and collaboration are crucial in any outdoor setting where a team is expected to always work together toward the achievement of common goals. As a leader, it is up to you to foster a strong sense of trust and camaraderie in your team so everyone works synergistically, relies on one another, and rests in the confidence that they all have each other’s backs.

Teamwork and collaboration are crucial in any outdoor setting where a team is expected to always work together toward the achievement of common goals.

It’s also important to resolve conflicts as soon as they erupt to maintain a positive and engaging culture within the team. Unresolved issues will only give rise to feelings of resentment and may adversely affect team dynamics.

Here are some tips on how to foster a strong sense of trust within your team, especially when you’re at the mercy of the outdoors, so teamwork becomes apparent in your group dynamics:

Set clear expectations. One of the keys to building trust is ensuring each individual on your team is aligned with the rest of the group. Confusion and false assumptions may arise if you don’t provide accurate information. Each team member must be informed and updated about goals, itineraries, emergency plans, and the code of conduct.
Always follow through. Doing what you said you would do is perhaps one of the best ways to gain your team members’ trust. Nothing spells dishonesty and duplicity more accurately than someone who doesn’t follow through on their words.
Take responsibility for both the good and the bad. It’s easy to take responsibility for triumphs, but it can be extremely difficult to take the blame for mistakes. Remember, as a leader, you must take extreme ownership of everything that happens under your watch, and taking accountability for both good and bad outcomes is a big step toward earning your team’s confidence.

5. Be Conscious of Your Team’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Sancus Leadership life changing expedition-styled leadership development program! — Know your team members.

As a leader, you must quickly identify your team member’s strengths and weaknesses and know how to utilize (or downplay) each of these for the benefit of the group. You must also acknowledge your own capabilities and deficiencies and be willing to leverage your strengths for the group’s advantage while never putting the group’s safety at risk by stubbornly going beyond your limitations.

You may find yourself dealing with some team members who are hesitant to acknowledge their own strengths and weaknesses. There may also be some who are oblivious to these. As a leader, take it upon yourself to bring out the best in each of your team members to help them reach their highest potential through proper coaching and mentoring.

Here are some tips:

Know your team members. To be an excellent leader, it’s essential to spend some time getting to know each of your team members on a deeper level. Find out where they excel, what drives them, and what they find challenging. In the same way, uncover their insecurities, fears, and what discourages them. This way, you can better adapt your leadership approach based on their unique needs.
Share feedback. Ask for feedback regarding executed tasks and at the end of each activity. This will give you a great benchmark on which practices work best and which will be better off omitted in the future. Give constructive feedback as well so your team becomes aware of areas they need to improve on and where they excel.
Do regular check-ins. Regularly check in with your team to ensure you’re always on the same page and still working toward the same objectives. Celebrate victories, no matter how small, to keep your team inspired, and don’t shy away from discussing failures because these should be seen as learning opportunities for the entire team.

6. Hone Your Outdoor Skills

As a leader, you must be able to cope with the stringent demands of the outdoors. To further earn your team’s trust, respect, and deference, strive to acquire higher levels of skills in various outdoor activities, so much so that you essentially become an expert who your team can rely on for their safety and security.

The core competencies you must enhance to be an excellent outdoor leader include:

Critical-thinking
Exceptional decision-making
Discipline
Efficiency
Excellent organizational skills

Strive to be adept in most, if not all, of these basic outdoor activities because enhancing your skills in these can be pivotal to your effectiveness as an outdoor leader:

Camping
Hiking
Mountain climbing
Rock climbing
Swimming
Kayaking
Rafting
Canoeing
Biking
Running
Skiing

7. Develop a Healthy Level of Empathy

Spending time outdoors will expose you to scenarios you would otherwise not experience in your usual day-to-day life. Some people may even find it unnerving to realize that their safety and success depend greatly on their peers and leaders.

To be an excellent outdoor leader, it’s crucial that you develop a healthy level of empathy for your team members. Remember, each of us, including you, has weaknesses and shortcomings. It’s not only essential to acknowledge and accept these; rather, overcoming them and developing each individual’s unique potential is much more critical.

To be a truly empathetic leader and become more effective in your mission, keep these simple pointers in mind:

Keep an open mind. Consider other people’s perspectives and opinions, even if they clash with yours.
Go deeper. Strive to see, hear, and feel what you’re not seeing, hearing, and feeling due to your own prejudices, inaccurate assumptions, and personal limitations.
Value adaptability. Don’t be obstinate and unyielding when it comes to accommodating your team member’s unique needs. When necessary, adjust your goals, improvise, and adapt to the given circumstances, and soon, you’ll witness your team members more engaged and growing in confidence and efficiency.

Steps to Become an Excellent Outdoor Leader	Key Point
1. Determine Your Leadership Style	No specific leadership style suits all outdoor situations. Tailor leadership approach to the group’s diverse personalities and needs.
2. Work on Your Communication Skills	Effective communication is vital in outdoor settings. Clear instructions and well-defined goals are crucial, even a matter of survival. Constant and concise communication ensures team alignment and success.
3. Learn to Be Resilient	Nature is unpredictable, and outdoor activities are challenging. Leaders must adapt, bounce back from setbacks, and maintain a positive outlook. Inspire the team with a resilient attitude. Embrace change and overcome obstacles.
4. Focus On Fostering Strong Teamwork	Teamwork and collaboration are essential in outdoor settings. A leader creates trust, camaraderie, and resolves conflicts. Positive team culture enhances performance and engagement.
5. Be Conscious of Your Team’s Strengths and Weaknesses	Identify team members’ strengths and weaknesses. Utilize strengths, acknowledge deficiencies, and lead within limits. Encourage team members to reach their potential through coaching.
6. Hone Your Outdoor Skills	Leaders must excel in outdoor skills for team trust and safety. Acquire expertise in various outdoor activities. Team should rely on leader’s expertise for security and guidance.
7. Develop a Healthy Level of Empathy	Outdoor experiences highlight reliance on peers and leaders. Leaders must cultivate empathy for team members. Recognize weaknesses and shortcomings, and overcome them together. Encourage individual growth and potential.

7 steps to becoming an excellent outdoor leader

Outdoor leadership theories and tips in any environment in the outdoors.

At Sancus Leadership, we can help you enhance your leadership skills through various outdoor activities — and have fun, to boot! All you have to do is book us a free leadership call so we can talk about how we can help you achieve your highest leadership potential.

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