Arlene Blum's leadership challenges on Annapurna's summit expedition

Leadership

Arlene Blum was an experienced mountaineer, in the 1970s. She had been disqualified from some expeditions because of her gender, and this bothered both her and other female mountain climbers. Thus, she founded an expedition to bring a group of women up to the top of Annapurna, which is the 10th-highest peak in the world.

Blum\'s initial work began with organizing and fundraising for the expedition. The process of organizing and financing such an expedition can take several months, and it can be quite complex. The expedition itself often also takes multiple months. Standing on the summit of such a mountain is therefore a tremendous achievement. That became the driving force for all of the climbers. While they each had individual motivations for joining the expedition, they also all rallied around the common objective of breaking through the gender barrier in mountain climbing, and putting a team of women to the top of one of the world\'s most dangerous mountains.

The narrative focuses a lot on the climb itself. There were several issues. At the lower levels, more like around Camp 2, there were issues within the team, as many took issue with Blum\'s leadership. They were all experienced climbers and high achievers in general, so they were in general not accustomed to a situation in which they felt that they had their voice. Or more specifically, they dealt with those situations in their working lives all the time, and did not feel that an expedition of all women should work that way. So early in the climbing phase of the expedition, cracks in the team framework began to appear.

For her part, Arlene had little experience in leading such an expedition, and therefore she was facing a learning curve. There was one critical decision in this relatively early stage of the climb, the Dutch Rib, where she had the four most experienced climbers participate in leading this. That decision especially rubbed some of the other team members the wrong way. The reason was because all had their motivations for being there, but the reality of such expeditions is that very few of the team members will actually summit. The implication of knowing so early in the expedition that you were probably not among the elite who would be considered for the summit attempt would have had a negative effect on the other team members, and would have reflected poorly on Arlene\'s leadership.

Arlene learned from the experience, however, and introduced a more collaborative approach to the project. Specifically, she opened up to other opinions, of all team members, and was better able to tap into their motivations. As a result, she was able to bring the team back together again, and strengthened her leadership as well, by growing in the face of this early adversity.

The latter stages of the ascent proved to be more problematic for Arlene. The first challenge was with respect to the dangerous conditions. There were more frequent avalanches than were expected. While all the climbers knew that Annapurna is a very dangerous mountain, the conditions in this season were abnormally bad. There was significant risk that somebody would die, probably in an avalanche, the longer the team was on the mountain. The imperative to have a safe and successful mission bumped up against the egos of the team members -- they all intended to summit on this mission. None would be dissuaded from the attempt, though clearly there was a rational case to be made that they should do so. Arlene knew that she felt much the same as everybody else though. As a mountain climber, she knew that people seldom turned back from such missions, and there were many cases where people who did regretted it. So while she had the ultimate decision, it was clear that all of the team members at that point wanted to continue. She did not need to build consensus because it already existed.

The next challenge arose in determining who would make the final ascent. Normally in these expeditions, there are only a few who actually summit the mountain. Some team members are disqualified for health reasons, but in other cases the team leader has to make a pragmatic decision with respect to who has the best chance for success. Compounding this decision is that the Sherpas who are hired to assist are critical for support of the mission. But once the first group has summited, they generally check out and start back down the mountain. They are not motivated to summit individually in the same way that a foreigner who has spent thousands and devoted months of their time would be. This is a reality of mountain climbing, and Arlene did not seem to really understand what the implications would be.

So she chose the first ascent team, and they reached the summit. The Sherpa support dissipated, as expected. But the problem for Arlene is that two other climbers were determined to get to the top themselves. She made an interesting decision here -- she let them make a second attempt. Without support, and with uncertain conditions, a second ascent was extremely dangerous. But the two climbers, Chadwick and Watson, were determined that they would also summit -- it was not enough to be part of a successful team, they actually needed that individual success. Arlene made the decision to let them go -- she felt that the rest of the team was safe enough. Chadwick and Watson died.

Blum then took the rest of the team down the mountain to safety. The expedition is generally considered a success. Blum had to weigh that the Chadwick and Watson were highly-successful women with something to prove. They were willing to take the risk of death in order to achieve this goal. This of course, raises a particular risk in that seeing the others succeed probably bolstered their optimism for their own prospects. They might have not been making a fully rational decision. Blum may have needed to consider that, but ultimately she decided that these two wanted to do it, they knew the risks, and they seemed to be comfortable with the risks. As a team leader, she recognized the independence and strength of her teammates to succeed and fail on their own merits, and allowed them to do this, even though it resulted in their deaths. Chadwick and Watson\'s bid for the summit did not put any of the other team members at risk.

2. There are several key leadership issues presented in this case. The first is leading a team of top people, and managing the egos that go along with that. This is something that differentiates someone who leads a team of followers -- Blum was a leader of leaders. That is a major challenge, one that she had never really experienced before, and it lead to some initial conflict.

However, Blum was able to learn, and the issue of communication was addressed. She was open to learning, and becoming better, and as a result she was able to improve her communication style over the course of the expedition. The narrative argues that she was a much better leader at the top then she was earlier in the expedition.

Another issue with respect to the last two climbers. Blum had to balance the independent nature of professionals with the risks to their safety, to the safety of others and to the legacy of the mission. In the end, she allowed them to indulge themselves, provided it was mainly at their own risk, which was the case. They perished, but they did so doing something that the felt that they had no choice but to do. In that sense, defining success and failure for the team, and for the members on the team, was a key challenge for Arlene, because each team member had her down definition of success, and for the last two, it was that they had to summit, while others decided to go back down.

Lastly, the chapter touches on the issue of motivation. Each team member had her own motivations, as did the Sherpas, and there were some conflicts that arose as the result of this. Furthermore, it was interesting to look at how some people\'s motivations really only became clear towards the end of the expedition -- it was not as though everybody was forthcoming about motivations right from the beginning, and people usually aren\'t.

3. Blum generally showed good leadership in this case. At the beginning, she was able to rally a team of people, raise funds, and organize the expedition. This showed some of the elements of leadership, such as tapping into the motivations of people, gaining strength for a mission, and then displaying the organizational acumen just to get the team to Annapurna.

The second element, the Dutch Rib incident, was the weak point of Arlene\'s leadership. It displayed her inexperience in the situation, and perhaps some naivety about the people with whom she was on the expedition. So there was some learning that she needed to do in order to build on that experience, and learn from it. Arlene ended up learning, and that was something that demonstrated the traits of a good leader. She was able to learn from the mistakes that she made, so that the team\'s confidence in her and in each other was restored. Being able to admit one\'s mistakes and learn from them is one of the traits of a good leader. Likely, having expedition members that she could easily respect probably helped her willingness to listen to their complaints, and respond to them in a positive manner.

The third issue was closer to the top, when she had to make a decision regarding who would go to the summit. The head Sherpa noted something to the effect that not everybody can summit, and it is her job as leader to communicate this. Arlene made a choice not to do this -- she wanted to but in the end allowed a second summit attempt. So in that sense, she was unwilling to do the hardest thing, but arguably there is not a lot of reason for her to prevent the second summit. If those two were willing to die on that mountain, Arlene was right to let them go. If they were, however, understating the risks and buoyed by the emotion of the first successful attempt, then Arlene should have sent them back down the mountain.

The fourth issue was related to the second summit attempt. While Arlene had the ability to tell them not to summit, and chose a compromise, she still did not work that hard to dissuade them. That they died may have been of their own volition, but those deaths occurred on her watch, as the leader, and ultimately she will have to accept that and live with that for the rest of her life.

Overall, Arlene demonstrated a lot of good leadership skills. She was able to build a team, and rally them around a common objective. There was complete buy-in at that point, and the team was well-organized as well. She demonstrated this mid-level leadership talent, and without flaw. When she made mistakes, she was willing to learn from them, which is another piece of evidence in support of the idea that Arlene is a great leader. The biggest issue is basically the ethical dilemma wherein she refused to demand that Chadwick and Watson stand down -- she allowed them to set their own fate. Ultimately, allowing people to set their own fate is fine, especially when they are voluntarily there and when they know the risks. But that situation was an ethical dilemma, and Arlene chose the route that most leaders would not have chosen. I personally take the view that there is nothing wrong with her choice, though I can see how not everybody would agree with that.

History shows that Arlene was a good leader afterwards as well, having done some more mountain climbing, but also become an expert in her field. She has, in general, lived a highly successful life, and her abilities as a leader surely played a part in that. And I certainly feel that the choice with respect to the second summit attempt was a key moment in Arlene\'s leadership development, because she could have allowed that to affect her negatively. She could have second-guessed herself a lot after that, but she knew at the time she made the decision, that it was the best decision she could make. It was an ethical dilemma, where there is no right answer, and any choice creates pain, so she rightly recognized that and it does not appear that she was negatively affected by that decision. That is a great takeaway for a leader -- it is okay to fail, if you made the decision for the right reasons, and based on the best available evidence. That was the case.