Being a leader right now is off the charts difficult. You are not immune from the havoc and upheaval all around you. And yet, your team/organization may be looking to you for answers, reassurance, and confidence. How do you project that if you aren’t feeling it? Where is the line between holding steady and being real with your team?
Not easy questions. But I fall back on a principal I’ve learned through decades of leading wilderness trips and working with teams: Authenticity outlasts and outshines perfection. Truly. People aren’t looking for false assurances. Your team needs you to be You—real, honest, leaning into your strengths, supporting your team, even being a little vulnerable.
Looking to various models of leadership is helpful, we can glean wisdom from all kinds of places. Be mindful, though, to stay true to who you are. It’s enough of a challenge to show up Wild: having the courage to bring the gift of all of who you are to all of what you do. Pretzeling yourself into a style of leadership that isn’t natural to you? It just doesn’t go well. People can smell inauthenticity. It’s a fast track to distrust and teams that risk unravelling.
I’ve gotten better over the years at just naming it, whatever ‘it’ is. But I can still feel the pull sometimes to project certainty when I’m not feeling it. This shows up very quickly on a wilderness trip: the food pack that was accidentally left behind (!); the map not lining up with where I thought we were; the campsite we were aiming for being washed out; whether we would make it to the pick-up point for the seaplane in time; whether to change lead dogs in the middle of a run. Ohhh, the stories.
Always at the heart of these stories is the level of reluctance I may be feeling in revealing my mistake or saying that I just don’t know. It’s an easy trap, to want to project strength, free of doubt. And yes, in some situations, as a leader, you need to do this. The art of Wild leadership, however, is in knowing yourself and your team. It’s recognizing that true strength is not infallibility or bluster, it’s the value you place in staying connected to yourself and your team, and in fostering belonging, even when there is no solid ground to be found.
