Outward Bound Lessons of Leadership

I have always been an avid reader – a book nerd. Ever since my boys were little I would tell them that “Readers are Leaders”. Wouldn’t it be great if this were true? However, it takes more than reading to become a true servant leader. It also takes grit, experience, uncomfortable confrontation, and throwing yourself into situations where you are scared, challenged, and willing to do what others shy away from. 

Some of the strongest leaders in the world have grown through fear, challenge and jumping into the unknown. The new book Outward Bound Lessons to Live a Life of Leadership – To Serve, To Strive, and Not to Yield by Mark Michaux Brown along with Outward Bound USA tells the story of how experienced-based learning is how leaders are made. 

Outward Bound is a learning and leadership based program for youth and adults. The core of the program leads people into the wilderness (hiking, biking, desert/jungle trips) and throwing them out of their comfort zone. Those who are fortunate enough to build their skills and enhance relationships become some of our strongest leaders. Outward Bound Lessons shares powerful personal stories, ideas, and real-world success traits that Outward Bound leaders bring as change agents to companies and communities around the world. Being thrown into unknown situations transforms people into “Expeditionary Leaders”. 

There are three key factors to being an Expeditionary leader. The motto is simple: 

· To Serve: Focus on employees, customers, communities, and the greater good

· To Strive: See challenges as opportunities to grow, value your learning and how to offer it to the greater good

· Not to Yield: Leaders learn that the “finish line” is forever and the best is always to come. Leaders should always stick to their principles under pressure. Never yield to weakness and always put others first. That means playing the long game, foregoing short term profits, and having the true moral courage 

The Outward Bound program has changed lives. It has pushed people to the edge of their humanity. As a result, they impact those around them and share the lessons they learned. The principles that we need to develop include effectively serving, striving, and not yielding. I was immersed in the numerous stories that people shared during the trips that they experienced in the book as well as the awe and courage they felt when they beat the odds. They had to live the “pages” of a leadership book to truly become leaders. 

Here are some common themes that the Outward Bound leaders experienced: 

· A yearning to serve a higher calling by taking risks and trying new paths to pave the way for others

· Problems are what spark leaders to jump into action

· Become core connectors and foster community interaction to build stronger communities

· Take advantage of teachable moments and reflect on learning’s

· Continually use uncertainty, adversity, and challenge for personal development

· Always be curious, never settle

· Relay on compassion for others no matter what the challenge

· Mentor and tech others the three Expeditionary Leadership qualities

· Go with your gut in situations while holding to your values

· Develop grit and stand up for yourself so that you can support others

· Know that you will need to continually take more risks and stay out of your comfort zone or your growth will diminish 

Outward Bound Lessons is a fascinating book. It is more than just getting teams together to experience zip lining or trust games for a day. It’s about people being with one another on a long and perhaps dangerous journey. Growth requires time and true reliance on others. Not only are the stories and lessons engaging, but at the end of each chapter, there are reflection questions to ask yourself and challenge what your notions of leadership are and what true leadership is. 

If you are looking for a fresh book on leadership where you can share the adventures of others and learn from the experiences that they had, this is a must-read. Learn how YOU should climb out of your skin once in a while and face the unknown for eye-opening lessons and personal growth

Lessons From the Garden

Thanks to Rachel Potter for this insightful guest post.

A garden can be a good metaphor for life, and it has been used this way over and over again because, of course, people and gardens go together and always have. City dwellers might not be able to identify an eggplant or oregano, but even a hundred years ago, most people were more attuned to the natural world’s clock than they were to an actual one. People woke with the sunrise and went to bed when it got dark, and they planted and replanted their gardens to keep a continual supply of food on their tables, so when they went looking for examples to explain life they went to the garden too.

Think of how many of these gardening idioms you use in your regular speech:

She’s as busy as a bee lately.

He’s certainly a late bloomer.

This old coat is going to seed; I need to replace it.

You reap what you sow.

He needs to nip that habit in the bud.

Probably many people don’t even know what reaping or sowing is, but they still use that idiom in their speech to communicate that what goes around comes around or that you get what you deserve in life because reaping and sowing were built into the rhythm of life. You knew if you planted lettuce seeds in your garden, you wouldn’t see tomato plants coming up in that spot. (Unless you planted tomatoes there last year, but that’s another story.)

What do you do when you’ve made a mess of something? We also go back to the garden for advice for that. We talk about getting to the root of the matter or digging something up from its roots, meaning that if we don’t deal with the entire problem, it will just crop up again. We mention mending fences when we mean making up with people we’ve had words with or wronged because we know that good fences make good neighbors (i.e., enforced boundaries are important).

There are also many idioms involving weeds. When we say that someone is deep in the weeds we mean they are in real difficulty. A garden that is overrun by weeds will not be productive because the weeds will steal the nutrients from the soil and the plants there will not thrive. To weed something out means to get rid of a bad thing, a problem. It’s similar to the idea of pulling a bad tooth, but more positive because pulling weeds is a lot less painful than pulling teeth!

It may seem like gardening problems and people problems have little in common, but there are many things to be learned from watching how a garden grows. Planting in season, watching the weather, tending your plot, watering when necessary pulling weeds while they are little and manageable - they may seem like childish lessons, but they can be applied to leadership too.

It’s easier to deal with a problem when it first emerges. We know that. Watching the dynamics between people in your company and looking to see which people work well together and which hinder each other - that’s crucial too. When you have problems with your staff or coworkers, it helps to determine what the real problem is rather than trying to fix a stream of petty complaints.

If you are a gardener, you’ll automatically see life through a the lens of the garden, but others may find it helpful to take what wisdom the natural world has to offer as well.