After studying the Everest case, I revised my leadership style. In our everyday life, we do not often think about why we do what we do, but after you receive information like this you start to think about what your leadership looks like.
On May 10, 1996 the two expeditions of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer reached the Everest summit. Both were experienced high-altitude climbers. Unfortunately, both leaders Hall and Fischer, and three of their clients, died as a storm happened on the mountain during their descent. Others survived many hours being in the dark with sub-zero temperatures.
From the Everest case, we can learn that the death of these five people was caused by problems in the leadership of the teams. We say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Of course, we can say that the disaster happened because of the bad weather, but at the same time on Everest were several teams, but not every one of them finished so badly: some decided to stay in camp IV and didn’t get to the summit. Many experts say that there was not one single reason, but a combination of them. Of course, if the weather had been perfect the tragedy might not have happened, but in life, we never have ideal conditions. We can conclude that there were many problems in leading the teams. Both leaders were experienced, they reached the summit on multiple occasions and had climbed many of the tallest mountains in the world, but they were weak as leaders. Learning from the mistakes of these two expeditions I want to analyze my leadership experience.
I worked as a software developer for a company that developed software for telecommunication companies. The system included billing, customer care, inventory, and other subsystems. When I started work there, I already had experience in using the programming language for five years, and more than ten years of software development, so I was kind of an expert. I was in a ten-person team that was responsible for several subsystems in the company’s big product. Our team leader was not able to manage so many projects, so I was appointed to help her in team management; my position was called Focal Point.
In the Everest case, we can observe that teams suffered from unclear role definitions. For example, Beidleman, the second guide in Fischer’s Mountain Madness expedition, didn’t have a clear idea about his role and status in the team. The clients also didn’t have a clear understanding of everyone's roles in the expedition.
As I can understand it now, I was in a similar situation at my work. I had a position with unclear definitions of my responsibilities and authority. When I asked my team leader to define them, she just said that I was responsible for everything that she was responsible for. But my team members didn't see me as having authority over them. When my managers asked me about problems in our modules, why something happened, and when it would be fixed, I had no power to control my team because I had no formal management position.
What would I do differently now, having this understanding? I think I would ask the team leader to specify my responsibilities and authority, or maybe I would even write it myself and discuss it with the team leader. It also should be announced at a team meeting in order to make my role clear to everyone.
Another problem of the team leaders that we can observe in the Everest case is a lack of constructive conflict. For example, before the summit bid, several of Hall’s clients worried about Hansen’s rapidly deteriorating physical condition, but Hall avoided conflict with Hansen by not making him remain in camp IV. This caused the deaths of Hansen, Harris, and himself.
In my case the lack of constructive conflict appeared in the following way: my team leader didn’t support me with management. Quite the opposite, she tried to humiliate me in front of colleagues. Maybe she just worried that I would become the team leader instead of her. In a similar situation in the future, I would discuss it with the person and not avoid the conflict.
Another example of avoiding constructive conflict happened when I asked my subordinate to change the code to follow the architecture standards of the system. He answered that the code worked so there was no need to modify it. All my efforts had no effect. Similarly, very often my requests for refactoring the code were left up in the air or just denied. I had good relationships with all members of my team, but I didn’t have clear authority among them. As I see it now, my fault was that I just was avoiding conflict situations.
I have already started to learn about conflict management. Recently, I took Fred Kofman's course Managing Conflict. I think now I should not avoid conflicts but turn them into constructive conflicts. First of all, I need to observe my behavior and understand when I am trying to avoid conflicts; instead of avoiding conflicts, I would try to manage constructive conflict. Of course, my current knowledge and experience are not enough to manage all conflicts I may have, so I need to spend more time learning conflict management. I also found that having skills in negotiation helps manage conflicts, for better negotiation knowing your colleagues is necessary. I think I should understand my colleagues better; I need to spend more time with them in an informal environment. This is very related to team building that was one of the important things in the Everest case.
Team building is the next major area I would work on. In the Everest case, both teams were commercial. Usually, this means that people who are in one group don’t know each other before the expedition. In both cases, team members mentioned that their teams were big, and people felt like strangers who were just walking together and nothing more. As we can see, the process of building a team is very important.
From my work experience, I have observed big and small teams, but very often their members were just strangers who work together. In the workplace, this point maybe not as important as in extreme conditions like on Everest, but the consequences can be detrimental for a company. Not many managers spend the time and energy to build a good relationship between all team members.
I am going to read more about team building and maybe take courses on the subject. It is worth spending more time with my team, learning more about their lives, families, children, and hobbies. I found that coordination is much better with people when you know each other better. From now on, I am going to invest my time in the people I work with.
There have always been many tasks needed to be done; therefore, I have rarely thought about my managerial skills. But after learning about the Everest case, I am inspired to work on and analyze my leadership style and abilities. I am going to improve myself in the areas of conflict management and team building. I would like the people I work with to feel part of a team, comfortable speaking their minds, and enjoy coming to work.
Books I intend to read and courses I plan to take include:
1. Ken Sande, Kevin Johnson, Resolving Everyday Conflict.
2. Ken Sande, The Peacemaker.
3. Dana Caspersen, Changing the Conversation.
4. Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
5. Leading People and Teams Specialization offered by University of Michigan, on Coursera.org
Photo by Rohit Tandon
