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Michael
Useem, who teaches leadership at the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania, says the side of a mountain is the
perfect place from which to teach leadership. "Mountains are a
metaphor for life and leadership," he says. "We talk about
getting to the top and the challenges to get up. It is using
mountaineering as a vehicle for talking about leadership."
In
May, Prof Useem, with experienced climber Edwin Bernbaum, led his
third "Wharton Leadership Trek to Mt. Everest". The trip,
an optional part of the course, is designed to teach leadership
skills in a real-life setting and usually lasts two weeks at a cost
of about $5,000. Originally limited to graduates of the school's
executive MBA programme, the trek has become so popular that next
year the 20 slots will also be available to all regular MBA students
and participants in the school's executive education programme.
The
lessons, while generally the same as those taken in the classroom,
are adapted to the non-traditional setting. The assigned reading,
for instance, includes Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air about a
tragedy in 1996 in which eight hikers died on the mountain. The
sessions often focus on the leadership lessons learnt that fateful
day. "A typical discussion point would be: 'What did happen,
and why did it happen? What were the leadership failings and what
were the errors?'" Prof Useem says.
The
participants also study the challenges of management by taking turns
leading the group. While a native guide is there to assist, each day
two different students must plan the day's activities, including the
midday meal and a lesson, and decide the direction of the day's
hike. By the evening those same students must test their leadership
skills by persuading a very tired group of hikers to discuss
management.
"Often
you just want to lie there to help the body recover. But a leader
can't do that. He or she must ensure the welfare of everybody
there," Prof Useem says. "Just like at publicly traded
companies, the leader can't put personal interests in front of
shareholders and employees."
To
teach teamwork, Prof Useem encourages each participant to help the
daily leader make decisions about the hike. This "leading
up" style, he says, allows better problem solving.
When
one of the hikers this year became ill at the highest camp - at
about 14,500ft - the team had a chance to put this management style
to work. The hiker, Steve Fahmie, a May 2000 graduate, had become
dizzy and nauseous and was unable to continue. When the trip's
doctor decided he needed medical attention, the whole group pitched
in to help.
A few
team members even volunteered to help him down the mountain.
"Probably some of them would have made it [to the summit], but
we were in a very isolated valley and walking back alone would not
have been a wise thing to do," Prof Useem recalls.
Leadership
became a required course at Wharton in the early 1990s after the
school heard from companies such as Goldman Sachs that they would be
looking for candidates with more functional skills. In 1996, the
school created the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change, a
research centre devoted to the subject.
"When
competition is intense, when the market is fast-changing, then the
leadership qualities in management become vital," Prof Useem
says.
Shortly
after, Prof Useem began to send students to Gettysburg's
battlefields to study how Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general,
led his troops. The popular trip, which has about 100 participants
every year, was the impetus for the Everest programme. "I
myself was already a mountaineer, and I knew that there were cases
out there to study," he says.
Prof
Useem is now trying to use the Everest trip as a corporate training
programme. Companies such as Merrill Lynch and Bethlehem Steel have
already sent their employees to Gettysburg. He also has plans to
start a second annual Everest trek in October, the only other time
during the year that it is safe enough to hike.
The
popularity of the programme is due in part to Prof Useem's ability
to connect with his students. They say that, while they learn a lot
from his classes, it is he, too, who inspires them as leaders. But
Prof Useem, ever the teacher, says that while he is flattered, he
sees it as only another lesson in leadership.
"It
is just a page out of [General Electric chairman] Jack Welch's play
book. For anybody who is in any kind of position to make things
happen, it is the obligation of those working with them to become
leaders themselves. To help others acquire the kind of leadership
they know they want to have . . . I think that would be the ultimate
measure of success."
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