The Leadership Moment By Michael Useem Presentation By Corbin White

1. The Leadership MomentBy Michael UseemPresentation By Corbin White

2. The Nine True Stories • Roy Vagelos at Merck • Lesson: Know Yourself: Understanding your values and where you want to go will ensure you know where to go. • Wagner Dodge in Mann Gulch • Lesson: Explain Yourself: You must explain yourself for associates to understand where you want to go so they can decide to follow you. • Eugene Kranz and Apollo 13 • Lesson: Expect the Best: To obtain the best, you must expect it.

3. The Nine True Stories • Arlene Blum on Annapurna • Lesson: Gain Commitment: Gathering support for a decision will mobilize those involved. • Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at Gettysburg • Lesson: Build Support Now: Building support before timing becomes critical makes it possible to call upon later. • Clifton Wharton at TIAA-CREF • Lesson: Prepare Yourself: Seek out varied and challenging tasks now so you can lead confidently later.

4. The Nine True Stories • John Gutfreund at Salomon • Lesson: Move Quickly: Inaction can be as harmful misled action. • Nancy Barry at Women’s World Banking • Lesson: Find Yourself: Find your goals and values so you can match them with an organization’s goals and values. • Alfredo Cristiani in El Salvador • Lesson: Remain Steadfast: Staying confident in what you are doing will keep followers unswerving in the pursuit of it.

5. Arlene Blum on Annapurna During the mid-1970’s mountaineering was sexist and often excluded women from expeditions. Arlene Blum had been rejected from expedition after expedition and decided to prove to the world that women were capable climbers. • Decided to lead an all women expedition of ten climbers up Annapurna in the Himalayas. • There were 13 previous attempts on Annapurna and only 4 had succeeded. • Of previous attempts, 1 in 10 had not returned

6. Leadership Role Begins • Months before leaving, Blum’s leadership role started. • Selecting and organizing the team • Raising money selling shirts • “Leadership is a learned skill” • Before the expedition Blum was described as having “a penchant for companionship and collaboration, not command and control” • Blum had to learn quickly to make the trip happen and then even more so once on the mountain to keep her team safe

7. No Leader Can Stand Alone There were 235 porters and Sherpas to support the ten women making the ascent Set up five camps as they ascended the mountain “Nobody can reach the top without the unrelenting efforts of all” The higher the camp, the less people present; however, there were more people below that were necessary to the success of the camp

8. Achieving Success Two of the women and two Sherpas reached the summit “A dozen team members were supporting them below and none would get close to the summit” and the challenge is keeping them motivated even though they will never achieve the glory the others have

9. Dangers When Leading Two women set off on a second attempt to reach the summit in high spirits after the success of the first group and fell to their deaths on the same route On the way up, the team was nearly killed on multiple occasions by avalanches but decided to press on “The challenge is to compensate, to mitigate both the optimism and the pessimism. Too much of either can be counter productive.” “Blum’s actions remind us of one’s responsibility for managing both one’s actions and their attendant risks when the end results have symbolic power.”

10. Lessons Learned • Gain Commitment: Gathering support for a decision will mobilize those involved. • Common objectives can be reached only if individual aims become aligned with the goals – “I learned that a group of ordinary people, when they share a common vision, can take on an incredible challenge and do things they never dreamed possible” – Arlene Blum

11. Questions ?