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TEAM LEADERSHIP

A leader is someone who has a vision and is able to assemble a team to make that vision come true. A leader must also be very quick thinking and able to solve daily problems as they happen. Every business will experience bumps along the way and leadership will help to steer the company through them. Companies can prosper only if leaders clearly know where they want to take them, and if staff respect and believe in their leaders.

-Allan Zeman1

B eing an effective leader means understanding the nature of leadership as it applies to leading teams. Some researchers (Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001) suggest that leadership may be the most important element in whether teams suc­

ceed or fail. Contrary to previous leadership theories, where I focused on a leader and fol­ lowers, in this chapter, the leadership function can be exercised by the leader in charge of the team, shared by members of the team, or both (Daft, 2005). Some researchers refer to this shared leadership model as team leadership capacity (Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2004).

THE TEAM LEADERSHIP MODEL

The team leadership model described in this chapter gives central importance to team leadership capacity in achieving team effectiveness. When the word leadership is used, it refers to team leadership capacity. The model itself offers a way of thinking for leaders sharing the team leadership role and should be used to determine team issues and prob­ lems as well as several alternatives to resolve these issues and problems while being cognizant of the team's resources and capabilities and the external challenge s and oppor­ tunities. The word external could mean the organization external to the team and/or the environment external to the organization of which the team is a part. Figure 10.1 summa­ rizes the team leadership model used in this chapter.

271

272 • CASESIN LEADERSff!P

Leadership Decisions

• Monitor or Take Action

• Task or Relational

• Internal or External

Internal Leadership Actions External Leadership Actions

Environmental

Networking Advocating Negotiating support Buffering Assessing Sharing Information

Team Effectiveness

Performance Development

Figure 10.1 Hill's Model for Team Leadership

Source:From Northouse (2007). Copyright© 2007, Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted withpermission.

Effective leadership in teams assumes behavioral flexibility, problem-solving skills applicable to teams, and using discretion when determining if leader intervention is nec­ essary. In the model in Figure 10.1, the first box suggests that leadership decisions affect team effectiveness directly and through internal and external actions that leaders can decide to take or not take.

Leadership Decisions

These decisions are as follows: (1) Should I continue to monitor, or do I need to take action? (2) If I need to take action, is it task or relationship focused or both? (3) If I need to take action, do I need to intervene inside the team or in the team's external environment (the organization or the environment external to the organization)?

Should I Continue Monitoring or Take Action Now? Knowing when to take action this is ," a very important leadership skill to develop. Intervening too soon could be more damag- : ing to team effectiveness than waiting. However, waiting could sometimes cause more': damage than intervening now. This skill develops through experience (similar to most leadership skills), and leaders need to understand that sometimes they will intervene too_

Task

Goal focusing Structuring for results Facilitating decision making Training Maintaining standards

Relational

Coaching Collaborating Managing conflict Building commitment Satisfying needs Modeling principles

Team Leadership • 273

soon or too late, but sometimes they will get it right. The ability to get it right generally increases as leaders develop more experience in a team setting. The important thing to remember is to learn from intervening too soon or too late .

To determine when to intervene, leaders need information. This requires the ability to scan and monitor the internal team dynamics and the external environment in which the team operates. In addition, formal leaders need to let iµformal team leaders share this task and be open to informal team leaders coming to them with internal team problems and external environmental issues that could help or hinder the team (Barge, 1996; Fleishman et al., 1991; Kogler-Hill, 2007).

Should I Intervene to Take Care of Relational and/or Task Needs? If team leaders decide they need to intervene, then they must determine whether intervention is necessary to improve problems and issues related to task/structure and/or whether to help improve interpersonal relations among team members, including the team leaders. Effective team leadership focuses on both task and relational issues/problems as a high level of task productivity, combined with superior intrateam relationships, leads to best team performance and development. For virtual teams, it may be necessary to focus on intrateam relationships and then work on fixing issues/problems related to getting the job or task done (Kinlaw, 1998; Pauleen, 2004). Trying to fix task related problems first may exacerbate the intrateam relationship problems to such a degree that it may make fixing both types of problems much more difficult.

Should I Intervene Within the Team or External to the Team? This decision is also very important. In the previous paragraph , I suggested that team leaders need to focus on task and intrateam relations . It is also important for team leaders to know when and if they need to intervene between the team and its external environment-be it within the larger orga­ nization or even external to the organization. Effective team leaders are able to balance the internal and external demands placed on their teams and to know if and when to intervene in one or in both. ·

Leadership Actions

The leadership decisions described above affect team performance and development through the actions team leaders take internally and externally. These actions are listed in Figure 10.1 and are based on research that discusses team performance. It is important for team leaders to assess the problem and select the right action or set of actions. The model in Figure 10.1 is a good guide for inexperienced team leaders and will become more use­ ful as leaders gain experience that allows them to internalize the model to the point where it becomes almost tacit-that is, leaders respond to situations without even thinking about the model.

The actions listed in the model are not all-inclusive, and astute team leaders will add others and maybe delete some as they gain leadership experience in a team environment. What is most important is developing the ability to discern when an intervention is needed and the appropriate action to take during the intervention.

.. Internal task leadership actions are used to improve a team's ability to get the job done. \ They include the following:

• Being focused on appropriate goals • Having the right structure to achieve the team's goals

274 • CASESIN LEADERSHIP

• Having a process that makes decision making easier • Training team members through developmenta1/educational seminars • Setting and maintaining appropriate standards for individual and team performance

Internal relational actions are those required to improve team members' interpersonal skills and intrateam relationships. They include the following:

• Coaching to improve interpersonal skills • Encouraging collaboration among team members • Managing conflict to allow intellectual conflict but not personal conflict • Enhancing team commitment • Satisfying the trust and support needs of team members • Being fair and consistent in exercising principled behavior

External leadership actions are those required to keep the team protected from the external environment but, at the same time, to keep the team connected to the external environment. These include the following:

o Networking to form alliances and gain access to information • Advocating for the team with those who affect its environment • Negotiating with senior management for recognition, support, and resources • Protecting team members from environmental diversions • Examining external indicants of effectiveness (e.g., customer satisfaction surveys) • Providing team members with appropriate external information

One practice that worked for me was having my boss's boss speak to my team at the start of a difficult project. This was much appreciated by the team members and showed the team members that senior management supported the project.

The critical point is that team member needs, in support of the goals agreed upon, are met either by the team leader or other team members. Of course, the better thi~ is done, no matter by whom, the better will be team effectiveness (Kogler-Hill, 2007).

Team Effectiveness

Team effectiveness consists of two overarching dimensions: team perlormance and team development. Team perlormance refers to whether and how well team tasks were accomplished, and team development refers to how well the team was maintained in accomplishing the team's tasks. Several researchers have suggested criteria for assessing team effectiveness. In this casebook, we will use the Larson and LaFasto's (1989) criteria.

I will present these criteria in the form of questions to help in assessing team effectiveness. The better a team is assessed to be on these criteria, the better the team is perlorming:

• poes the team have specific, realizable, clearly articulated goals? • ·Does the team have a results-oriented structure? • Are team members capable? • Is there unity with respect to commitment to the team's goals? • Is there a collaborative climate among team members? • Are there standards of excellence to guide the team? ·

Team Leadership • 275

• Is there external support and recognition for the team? • Is team leadership effective?

These criteria are important in assessing team effectiveness. Effective team leaders will find formal and informal ways of examining themselves and their team against these criteria. Finally, team leaders must be willing to take action to correct weaknesses on any of these criteria (Kogler-Hill, 2007).

How DoEs THE TEAM LEADERSHIP MoDEL WoRK?

The model in this chapter is a mental map for helping team leaders constantly assess their team's effectiveness, as well as when and where the team's leaders need to intervene. If an intervention is needed, is it internal task, internal relational, or external? This constant analysis is necessary for continuous team improvement. Just as hockey general managers need to continuously assess their team coaches and players, whether winning or losing, team leaders in nonsports organizations need to continuously push for improvement and, for example, must know when it is appropriate to change the coach and/or team members. The team leadership model assists in this push for continuous improvement and helps determine weaknesses that might need an intervention on the part of a member of the team's shared leadership structure.

To continue with the sports analogy, it may be necessary for the team captain to hold a players-only meeting, it may be appropriate for the coach to change team strategy when playing different teams, and/or it might be appropriate for the general manager to change the coach and/or team players. Lou Lamoriello, the general manager of the New Jersey Devils National Hockey League team, changed his team's coach with eight games to play at the end of the 2000 season and ended up winning the Stanley Cup. Since he became the general manager in 1987, the Devils have won three Stanley Cups (the most by any gen­ ,I,•

eral manager since 1987), and Lamoriello has done this with a different coach each time.

NOTE

1. Allan Zeman is Chairman of Lan K wai Fong Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong.

REFERENCES

Barge, J . K. (1996). Leadership skills and the dialectic of leadership in group decision making. In R. Y. Hirokawa & M. S. Poole (Eds.), Communication and group decision making (2nd ed.), (pp. 301-342). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Daft, R. L. (2005). The leadership experience (3rd ed.). Mason , OH: Thomson, South-Western. Day, D. V., Gronn, P., & Salas, E. (2004). Leadership capacity in teams. The Leadership Quarterly,

15, 857-880. Fleishman, E. A, Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Levin, K. Y., Korotkin, A. L., & Hein, M. B.

(1991). Taxonomic efforts in the description of leader behavior: A synthesis and functional interpretation. The Leadership Quarterly, 2(4), 245-287.

·Kinlaw, D. C. (1998). Superior teams: What they are and how to develop them. Hampshire, UK: Grove.

276 • CASESIN LEADERSHIP

Kogler Hill, S. E. (2007). Team leadership. In P. G. Northouse (Ed.), Leadership: Theory and practice (4th ed.), (pp. 207-236). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Larson , C. E., & LaFasto, F. M. J. (1989) . Teamwork: What must go right/what can go wrong. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pauleen, D. J. (2004). An inductively derived model of leader-initiated relationship building with

virtual team members. Journal of Management lnfonnation Systems, 20(3), 227-256. Zaccaro, S. J., Rittman, A. L., & Marks, M.A. (2001). Team leadership. The Leadership Quarterly,

12, 451--483, Zeman, A. (2006, March 21). Mr.Lan Kwai Fong (Part 3 of 8, Ivey Leadership Series). South China

Morning Post, Business Section.

THE CASES

The 1996 Everest Tragedy

In May 1996, two world-renowned climbers, along with some of their clients and guides, perished on Mount Everest in the mountain's deadliest tragedy to date. The accounts of sur­ vivors imply that biased decision making contributed to the tragedy. Did a decision lead to this tragedy, or was it an unfortunate mountaineering accident? The case provides the opportunity to explore decision biases such as framing, escalation of commitment, anchor­ ing, and overconfidence and the issues of leadership style, group behavior, team manage­ ment, and communication.

Century Park Sheraton Singapore

A hotel's personnel director wonders ifhe should attempt to get even greater employee involvement after setting up Work Excellence Committees. The committees are composed of union and management representatives at sectional, departmental, and top management levels, and they provide the coordinating mechanism for the hotel's many productivity activities. The positive end result was progress in labor-management relations.

THE READING

Why Innovation Happens When Happy People Fight

If it's not if you win but how you play the game, then playing-or working-with humor and an upbeat positive attitude are surely the right way to play. Besides, these are the teams that usually win.

Team Leadership • 277

!:?'e:: r::r=,;:n

THE 1996 EVERESTTRAGEDY

Preparedby Khushwant Pittenger

Copyright© 2004, Ivey Management Services

In May 1996, two world renowned climbers, along with some of their clients and guides, perished on Mount Everest (Everest) in the mountain's deadliest tragedy to date. Were these deaths unfortunate mountaineering accidents, or did some poor decisions significantly contribute to the dangers leading to the deaths?

INTRODUCTION

According to Jon Krakauer, "attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational. act-a triumph of desire over sensibility. Any person who would seriously consider it is almost by definition beyond the sway of reasoned argument."1Yet, Krakauer was one of 150 climbers and their 300 Sherpa guides and porters who were in the process of climbing Mount Everest on the weekend of May 10, 1996, the dead­ liest in the mountain's history.2 That season, a record number of 98 climbers had reached the summit, yet 15 climbers had died on the mountain, 11 during the weekend of May 10.3 The deaths might have been written off as a natural element of the sport and the increasing commercialization of the mountain, had it not involved two of the most experienced and famous climbers in the world and some of their clients of questionable abilities, who had paid approximately $70,000 each to set foot on top of the world. Krakauer was one of the fortunate clients who lived to tell the story. Other survivors have pub­ lished their accounts as well.4

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AND

THE MOUNTAIN WITHOUT MERCY

· Rob Hall's expedition group, Adventure Consultants ' Guided Expedition (Adventure Consultants), had

Version: (A) 2004-03-30

boasted in an American mountaineering journal 100 percent success in reaching the Mount Everest summit.5 Hall perhaps had reason to be boastful: he had climbed Mount Everest four times. In six years, he had guided 39 clients to the summit, more than the total number of people who had reached the summit in the 20 years fol­ lowing Sir Edmund Hillary's first climb in May 1953.6 On this particular weekend, the accom­ plished New Zealander, Rob Hall, was guiding a party of eight-his largest client team ever. He was, however, not the only famous climber with clients on the mountain. Scott Fischer of Seattle was the leader of Mountain Madness Guided Expedition (Mountain Madness). He also had eight clients, and his company was a direct competitor of Adventure Consultants Guided Expedition, Rob Hall's company. Actually, Hall had "stolen" Jon Krakauer from Fischer's expedi­ tion by offering Outside magazine, which spon­ sored Krakauer, a sweeter deal in exchange for publicity. In addition, 14 other expeditions from around the world, including a team sponsored by IMAX, were on the mountain in the spring 1996 with lofty arnbition.7 No doubt, this was a remarkable story in the making.

Everest's summit is the highest in the world with a height of 29,028 feet. It is a place where the difference between life and death may be only one small step. One wrong step can plunge a climber to death either in Nepal or China. More than 150 climbers have died on their way up to the summit or on their way down from the summit. 8 "Going to the summit is entirely optional but returning is mandatory." 9 A signifi­ cant number of climbers die on their return from the summit when they run out of energy, oxy­ gen, thinking ability and daylight. It is a place where the most minor ailments turn deadly, people lose their desire to eat and the thinking

278 • CASESIN LEADERSHIP

level becomes that of a child. Minor wounds do not heal, a dry cough cracks ribs, exposure of limbs to the elements can instantly make them as fragile as glass and the body starts to eat into its own muscle to stay alive. It is a place where severe storms develop quickly and unpre­ dictably and often rob climbers of their most precious resource-sight. On the average, only one in seven climbers actually reaches the sum­ mit, and yet approximately 700 people have reached the summit. 10 One can only wonder why anyone would want to climb Mount Everest. The answer can be found in the British moun­ taineer George Mallory's classic 1924 response, "Because, it's there." George Mallory is specu­ lated to have died on his way down from the summit.

Obviously, death on Mount Everest is neither unexpected nor unusual. Yet, the world was in shock when 11 climbers perished on the moun­ tain during the weekend of May 10, 1996. Particularly newsworthy were the deaths of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, two of the most experi­ enced climbers in the world. Fischer had gained world-wide notoriety in 1994 for climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen and removing 5,000 pounds of trash from the moun­ tain as part of the Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition. 11 The experience and the fame seemed to have made Fischer confident- . perhaps overconfident. When asked about the risks, he was noted to tell a reporter shortly before the 1996 climb, "I believe 100 percent I am coming back. ... My wife believes 100 per­ cent I'm corning back." 12 Fischer cajoled Krakauer into joining his expedition to write an article for Outside magazine with statements like, "Hey, experience is overrated. It's not the altitude that is important, it's your attitude. You'll do fine .... These days, I'm telling you, we've built a yellow brick road to the summit."13

Fischer made these claims even though he had never guided a commercial expedition to the summit, he suffered from a chronic clinical ill­ ness related to gastrointestinal parasites and he had reached the summit only after three previ­ ous unsuccessful attempts. Fischer died on his

return from the summit only 1,000 feet from the safety of Camp Four.

Fischer's attitude seemed to match that of his rival commercial operator, Rob Hall, of Adventure Consultants. Hall failed to guide any of his clients to the summit in 1995, and his co­ founder, Gary Ball, had died of altitude sickness in the Himalayas in 1993. Yet, Hall's company placed ads in American mountaineering maga­ zines claiming "100 percent Everest success."14

Rob Hall's cockiness could be attributed to his ability to successfully guide 39 climbers of vari­ ous abilities to the top in the past and his ability to save all his clients' lives under the worst of cir­ cumstances in 1995. His extraordinary success in the past seemed to have led him to believe, "there was little he couldn't handle on the mountain."15

Yet, on May 10, 1996, Hall died on the moun­ tain, along with two of his clients and one of his guides.

The Deadly Decisions

Were the deaths of Fischer, Hall and others just natural events due to unpredictable weather and bad luck, or did other human factors play a role? Ironically, it was Fischer who told a reporter before his 1996 expedition, "I am going to make all the right choices. When accidents happen, I think it's always human error . . .. You come up with lots of reasons, but ultimately it's human error."16 One accomplished guide put it rather bluntly: "The events of May 10 were not an accident, nor an act of God. They were the end result of people who were making decisions about how and whether to proceed."17

Coburn concluded that, "lives were lost as a result of compounding factors."18 However, even he pre-qualified his statement, "But if one or two decisions, out of many hadn't been made ... the outcome may have been very different."19 Can we learn anything from this extreme case for climbing our own mountains in the workplace and guiding/leading others to the desired peaks of performance?

Everest is considered the toughest mountain to climb because the altitude makes even simple

mountaineering exceptionally difficult. It took 101 years since its discovery before Hillary and Tenzing successfully reached the summit and returned alive to tell the story in May 1953. However, Mount Everest's popularity has been steadily increasing. With its popularity has come its commercialization. In 1996, 16 expeditions paid $70,000 a team plus an additional $10,000 a member if the expedition had more than seven members. Another 14 expeditions paid $15,000 a team to China to climb the mountain from the Tibetan side. There were .five Web sites posting daily dispatches from the base camp, including NOVA's Web site, which received as many as 10,000 visits a day following the news of disas­ ter on the mountain. A number of reporters were part of these expeditions to write storiesfor their respective publishers, including Jon Krakauer, who was to write about the commercialization of the mountain for Outside magazine. The IMAX team spent 5.5 million dollars to film the climb of Everest. Guided climbs to the summit became a subject of controversy world-wide. There were commercial expedition leaders who themselves had never climbed Everest. Krakauer quotes Rob Hall, "With so many incompetent people on the mountain, I think it is pretty unlikely that we will get through the season without something bad happening up high."20 Obviously, Hall was not thinking of anything bad happening to him or his clients.

Hall had the reputation of being a very methodical, organized and caring person. He was known to pay close attention to all the details, including the health and well-being of team members and their equipment. He paid his staff well and even had a paid doctor on staff. He was the epitome of an efficient operator, and his clients felt they were with the best commercial guide on the mountain. No wonder he had little trouble finding clients for the last seven years, even if he charged $65,000 a person. He was well-respected by his guides, clients, Sherpas and even other teams. He mediated labor dis­ putes, co-ordinated equipment sharing responsi­ bilities among expeditions and even tried to establish agreements on summit climbing dates

Team Leadership • 279

to avoid crowding on the treacherous route at the top. He used the traditional five-week acclimati­ zation process to get his clients accustomed to the thin air of the mountain, as the Everest sum­ mit has only one-third the oxygen of air at sea level. If climbers were dropped off on the sum­ mit from sea level, they would die within min­ utes from altitude-related illnesses. Like most other guides, Hall gathered his team in Nepal in March and took them to the base camp, at a height of 17,600 feet, in the beginning of April. From there, over a period of a month, the teams made grueling climbs back and forth to a series of four camps established higher up on the mountain at different heights in order to steadily acclimate their bodies to increasingly low levels of oxygen. Unlike many other commercial guides, Hall personally escorted his entire team up and down those climbs. He was always there when any of his clients suffered altitude illnesses or injuries related to mountaineering. His tactics might have been efficient, but they created and reinforced the clients' dependence on him.

Scott Fischer had a different strategy for his team. He had given his clients free rein in going up and down the mountain for acclimatization. His main guide, who was from Russia, had a different philosophy about client service. He did n9t share Fischer's western perspective of meet­ ing all the needs of his clients. One of Fischer's clients said, "I doubted that I'll be able to count on him when it really mattered."21 The Russian guide believed in the survival of the fittest, and many of these clients were not fit for such a demanding environment. Many of Hall's and Fischer's clients were well-to-do professionals with busy careers who had little time for real mountaineering on a regular basis. They used gym equipment to get ready for the climb. This is not to say they did not have any previous moun­ tain climbing experience. Actually, their previ­ ous mountain successes might have given them a dangerous sense of confidence. Fischer person­ ally had to do a lot of hurried and unscheduled running back and forth between the camps to help his clients in trouble. His team doctor was inexperienced and was there only on a voluntary

280 • CASESIN LEADERSHIP

basis. His most experienced Sherpa, who had climbed Everest three times previously without bottled oxygen, was poorly acclimatized for the summit this year and probably would not be there to support Fischer during the acclim~tiza­ tion of the team. Almost the entire month of April, the Sherpa was busy with the rescue of another Sherpa on the Mountain Madness team who had to be brought down to the base camp and later evacuated to Kathmandu before he died in late April. Fischer, an energetic and charismatic person by nature, was described as being "extremely wasted" during his ascent to · the summit.

Mountain Madness, Scott Fischer's company, had been a fiscally marginal enterprise since its launch in 1984. In 1995, Fischer's income was $12,000. His family had been supported mostly by his wife's income as a pilot for Alaska Airlines. During the past year, however, she had been involved in a sexual harassment lawsuit with her employer. This was Fischer's chance to enter the Everest market and emulate Rob Hall. The competition between Fischer's Mountain Madness and Hall's Adventure Consultants for the high end of the market was obvious. Hall had failed to take any clients to the summit in 1995. If he failed again this year, Fischer was likely to become a formidable threat. He already had the strategic advantage of being based in the United States as more than 80 percent of clients came from the United States. The need for market advantage was the reason Rob Hall had signifi­ cantly undercut Fischer in his negotiations with Outside magazine to get Jon Krakauer on his team. He bartered for magazine space, in exchange for $55,000. Scott Fischer's cash­ strapped enterprise probably was una:ble to match the deal. Fischer, however, did manage to have Sandy Pittman, a New York socialite and free­ lance reporter for multiple national papers maga­ zines and television networks, on his team.

The Pressure to Perform

The presence of repo11ers among the teams was a double-edged sword. They provided visibility

and notoriety world-wide through their reporting, much of which was posted on the Internet on a daily basis. Their presence also, however, created pressure for performance among the team members and leaders. One of the clients on Rob Hall's team, Beck Weathers, commented on the presence of reporters among the teams, "I was concerned that it might drive people further than they wanted to go. And it might even for the guides ... they want to get people on top of the mountain because ... they're going to be written about, and they're going to be judged."22 This thinking bears credence in light of Scott Fischer's comments, "If I can get Sandy to the summit, I'll bet she'll be on TV talk shows. Do you think she will include me in her fame and fanfare?"23 The pressure to push beyond the limits was not all external. After investing a significant amount of money and an inordinate amount of time and effort in the ordeal, few would have had the courage to turn their back on the summit less than two vertical miles and a few days away. Jon Krakauer reported, "Doug was hell bent on join­ ing the summit push even though .. . his strength seemed fo be at a low ebb. 'I have put too much of myself into this mountain to quit now, without giving it everything I've got.' " 24 Doug Hansen was a 46-year-old postal worker from Seattle who had paid for this trip by working the night shift and doing construction work during the day. This was his second attempt to reach the summit with Rob Hall. In 1995, he had been turned around by Hall only 300 feet away from the sum­ mit because of their late arrival at the peak. Hansen died on his way down from the summit on May 10, 1996.

Hansen's sentiments were shared by others regardless of their physical condition. Beck Weathers, a pathologist from Dallas, insisted on attempting the summit on May 8 and 9, even though he was suffering from near· blindness because of the impact of altitude on his vision correction eye surgery and his feet had been badly wounded by his brand new boots. He sure, vived miraculously after he had been left for dead on the mountain and his family had been· notified of his demise.

The expedition leaders were not blind to these dangers; they were very cognizant of them. Hall had expressed concerns about his clients' inabil­ ity to turn around on their own by impressing upon them how important it was for them to unconditionally obey him and his guides on the mountain during their final push to the summit. On their ascent on May 6, Hall had drawn their attention to another climber whom they encoun­ tered on his way down. The climber had turned around at 2 p.m. op.ly 300 feet and an hour away from the summit. Hall said, "To turn around that close to the summit ... that showed incredibly good judgment .. . I am impressed-consider­ ably more impressed, actually, than if he'd con­ tinued climbing and made the top."25 In the month of April, Hall repeatedly underscored the importance of having a predetermined turn­ around time, either 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., and abiding by it no matter how close people were to the top. Unfortunately, he did not establish a specific time on the day they reached the summit and did not himself abide by the generally understood principle of turning around no later than 2 p.m.

Who Is the Leader of the Team?

The need for clear instructions and leadership was critical for these teams. In comparison to tra­ ditional mountain climbing teams, these teams were large and consisted of strangers with a wide range of abilities and experiences. This created a worrisome situation because the actions of a sin­ gle member-bad knots, improper hooking-up or a fall-can jeopardize the safety of the entire team. No wonder Jon Krakauer "hoped fervently that Hall had been careful to weed out clients of dubious ability." He was not reassured by the actions of his teammates who brought unbroken, new boot1? or were seen not knowing how to hook tµe crampons on their boots for climbing the ,glacier. Under such circumstances, no wonder Jiall and Fischer felt the need to establish their , qUthority over their team members, including the 'guides, as unquestionable . Immediately prior to the departure for the summit from the base 'amp, Hall was reported to say, "I will tolerate

Team Leadership • 281

no dissension up there .... My word will be absolute law beyond appeal."26 The clients were obedient because dependence upon leaders, guides, Sherpas and passivity had been encour­ aged from the beginning.27 Even the guides knew their place in the pecking order. One guide in Fischer's team later reported, "I was definitely considered the third guide .... So I didn't always speak up."28 There were pay differences. Senior guides were paid twice as much as the junior guides. In addition, they were the only ones with radios for two-way communication on the day of summit-an error that is considered to have con­ tributed to the tragedy.

For the summit push, Hall had instructed the team to "climb in close proximity .. . within a hundred metres of each other." The result was that on May 10, the team performed at the level of the slowest member of the team on the final summit day when they were to climb from Camp Four to the summit and return in a grueling race against time and elements. The stronger members of the team had to stop and wait peri­ odically for the slower members to catch up for periods that added up to more than four hours just on their way up. In addition, these waits cre­ ated crowding on narrow, treacherous pathways and bottlenecks, which added at least another four hours of delays for the stronger members. The result was that no one reached the summit before 1 p.m. on May 10. In the absence of a clear directive from Fischer or Hall about when to turn around, the members kept ascending. Only six members from the two teams (three guides and three clients from the two teams) reached the top by 2 p.m. Doug Hansen and Rob Hall were the last ones to arrive at 4 p.m.-fully two hours behind the generally understood turn­ around time of 2 p.m. Not every member of the team, however, succumbed to the temptation. Four members of Hall's team did tum around when they were caught in a bottleneck and real­ ized they would not reach the top by 1 or even 2 p.m. Hall seemed disappointed in their deci­ sion, perhaps because Fischer's clients were con­ tinuing to push forward at that time and the weather still looked good.

282 • CASESIN LEADERSHIP

Communication in Times of Crisis

The weather turned deadly very quickly in the evening during the teams' descent on May 10. The availability of only two radios on each team made communication scarce, chaotic and unreli­ able, right when precise communication and leadership mattered most to the members who were socialized to be passive and dependent. The 3,000-foot climb (less than one vertical mile) to the summit from Camp Four is a 16- to 18-hour race under the best of circumstances. These were not the best of circumstances. Even the strongest members had taken 14 hours on their way up because of wasted time waiting for the slower members and the bottlenecks. Most of the climbers on the two teams, as a result, were run­ ning out of canned oxygen. During their acclima­ tization, many were seen using oxygen at altitudes lower than where it is considered essen­ tial. Almost no one was coping well with wind chill factors near 100 degrees below zero, white­ out conditions, little canned oxygen to support their bodies or brains, and no leaders for moral support or physical guidance. Only two clients, Krakauer and Adams, barely managed to make it down to Camp Four before the <:Onditions became utterly hopeless. Twenty-seven individuals were lost on the mountain that night.29 The climbers were disoriented and suffering from hallucina­ tions and exhaustion. Some of them huddled only 200 feet away from Camp Four for hours waiting to be rescued. Through combined heroic acts of some Sherpas, guides and the clients in Camp Four, most of them eventually were brought down to the sparse safety of Camp Four. Scott Fischer and Rob Hall were not among them. They were caught in the storm too high up, and were beyond help. Scott Fischer's poor physical health and possible illness had slowed down his descent to a crawl. His image of invincibility led others to ignore his condition. They focused their energies on saving themselves or the other "weaker" climbers. Doug Hansen had used all he had to reach the summit. Rob Hall took 10 hours to negotiate a descent with Hansen that others would negotiate in a half-hour. Even when his friends at the lower levels urged him to save him­ self, Hall refused to abandon Hansen. Some have

suggested that Hall was in an impossible situa­ tion. Leaving a live client on the mountain certain to die in order to save himself would have ruined his credibility as a guide. At the same time, stay­ ing with the client under deadly conditions was certainly going to kill him.30 Also, Hansen told teammates Hall had called him a dozen times urg­ ing him to give the summit a second chance and offering him a reduced rate to come back. Neither Hansen nor Hall made it down. By the time the storm cleared, 11 climbers had died, and one died later from his injuries. Of the dead, four were from Adventure Consultants and three from Mountain Madness.

NOTES

1. Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, Anchor Books, New York, 1997, p. xvii.

2. J. Adler and R. Nordland, "High Risk," Newsweek, Society Section, May 27, 1996, p. 50.

3. B. Coburn, Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, National Geographic Society, New York, 1997.

4. A. Boukreev, and G.W. DeWalt, The Climb, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1997; D. Breashears, High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999; B. Weathers, Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest, Villard Books, New York, 2000.

5. J. Adler and R. Nordland, "High Risk," Newsweek, Society Section, May 27, 1996, p. 50.

6. B. Coburn, Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, National Geographic Society, New York, 1997.

7. Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, Anchor Books, NewYork, 1997.

8. B. Coburn, Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, National Geographic Society, New York, 1997.

9. B. Weathers, Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest, Villard Books, New York, 2000.

10. B. Coburn, Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, National Geographic Society, New York, 1997.

11. Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, Anchor Books; NewYork, 1997.

12. Ibid 13. Ibid, p. 263. 14. J. Adler, and R. Nordland, "High Risk,"

Newsweek, Society Section, May 27, 1996, p. 50.