What Is Outdoor Leadership? (And Its Powerful Role In Business)

Have you ever gone camping with a group and ended up being the leader? Did your leadership skills get a nice little boost at the end of the trip? Maybe you even found a way to translate that into business success? If that happened, you might have experienced outdoor experiential leadership at its best.

Outdoor leadership uses outdoor team activities (experiential training) to boost your leadership skills. Canoeing, mountain climbing, and even camping can help you learn communication skills and the value of everyone on your team. Outdoor leadership activities can also improve your leadership abilities in the workplace.

If you want to hone your leadership, stick around. You’ll learn what outdoor leadership is, how to use outdoor activities to boost your leadership skills, and what natural characteristics make a good outdoor leader. You’ll also learn how to transfer what you learned outdoors to your workplace team.

Outdoor Activities Boost Leadership Skills

Management and leadership are not limited to the boardroom, and if this is your only means of leadership training, you’re missing out on the most powerful shortcut to becoming a more trusted leader. Outdoor activities such as camping or whitewater rafting require you to have “skin in the game” and come to solutions immediately.

Skin In The Game by Nassim Taleb is a great book when you want to understand why risk is necessary for great leaders to develop.

As a leader, you might not need to make quick decisions when at work, but when you’re in nature, it has a way of forcing you to make snap decisions based on the weather conditions and the welfare of your team. 

Here’s an example of what I mean. 

Let’s say you’ve taken your work team on a weekend camping trip to learn how to communicate better. Your camping spot is at the base of a mountain, and it’s finally spring after a very cold and snowy winter.

And because it’s so warm, avalanches are more likely to happen. But you were assured that your team was safe in the designated camping area. Except…you weren’t.

After everyone settled down for the night, you and your team heard this awful thundering roar like a freight train approaching your campsite. You see a wall of snow, ice, and rocks barreling toward your entire team. 

You don’t have the luxury of waiting a week to decide, as you must act RIGHT NOW! You gather your team and race to your vehicles to escape the avalanche path. In the moment, your decision saved the lives of everyone on the team.

The above scenario demonstrates several leadership qualities that benefit from outdoor activities. Let’s discuss how in more detail.

You Learn Effective Communication

While workplace communication is important in getting the job done, it’s absolutely critical in outdoor leadership. This is because you don’t have time to waste with ineffective communication when something happens in nature. 

You need to be direct and to the point because if your communication goes unreceived, it’s a matter of life and death.

It might not be a matter of life and death in the workplace if you have ineffective communication, but it could mean that your projects don’t get done on time or you lose customers. Outdoor leadership training teaches you effective communication.

Outdoor Leadership Develops Problem-Solving Skills

Outdoor activities create a new set of problems that you don’t usually encounter in the workplace. Whitewater rafting, for example, gives you problems like the following:

• Fast-moving water
• Navigating the twists and turns in the river
• The possibility of falling into the river
• Getting lost

These problems can mean life or death if your problem-solving skills aren’t up to par. 

Using that same example, what do you do when the water is too high or going too fast to navigate? Or how do you deal with the twists and turns of the river without falling in? As the leader, you’ll need to solve the problem instantly.

Taking this into the workplace, when faced with a work problem, you’ll be better able to solve the problems as they arise, and you get faster at doing so. 

By the way, having sharp problem-solving skills are in high demand when searching for a job or getting a work promotion. If you want to improve your leadership problem-solving skills for your next hike or camping trip, schedule a coaching call with me at your earliest convenience.

Making Decisions Will Become Faster

Just as your problem-solving skills improve during outdoor leadership activities, your decisions become faster. Much faster, in fact. 

You don’t have the luxury of putting off your decisions when outdoors, as the consequences of a bad decision are almost immediate. It works like gravity because the moment your bad decision is made, you feel the consequences.

You don’t have the luxury of putting off your decisions when outdoors, as the consequences of a bad decision are almost immediate. It works like gravity because the moment your bad decision is made, you feel the consequences.

Let’s use the whitewater rafting example again. 

What happens if you don’t navigate a sharp turn quickly enough? Your raft will likely flip, and you’re flailing down the river, trying not to drown. 

Quick decisions can mean the difference between life and death. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s absolutely true–you cannot take the time to weigh your options if you’re rafting down a raging river.

How does this relate to being a small team leader in the workplace? 

If you normally have problems making decisions or take a long time doing so, outdoor leadership activities can retrain your mind to make faster decisions. It can also help you realize that you know what you’re doing and that if you make the wrong decision in the workplace, you won’t end up in the river.

It can also give you more confidence in your career, as you’ll start seeing yourself as a capable leader in the office and outdoors. 

You Learn How To Value Your Team Members

Normal workday activities don’t always show you who your team members are. You don’t get to know them outside the workplace or see their strengths or weaknesses. 

However, outdoor leadership activities you do together as a team show you a different side of your team members. You have time to talk with them about their families, hobbies, and passions that make them light up with joy.

Even when working together to solve a problem, such as while camping, you see a completely different side of them. And seeing this teaches you how to value your team on a different level. You see what they’re capable of and learn how you can help them accomplish their career goals and beyond.

I you are lucky, you see their true passions in life so that you can feed that energy back at work, allowing them to 10x engagement.

Working with a leader who values the team makes a huge difference for the entire team, not just you. They become better at their jobs and are more loyal to the team, and your customers will feel this.

Delegation Becomes Easier

Do you have a difficult time delegating tasks to your team members? Do you often feel like you’re asking too much of them, and maybe it’s better you do it yourself?

If you’ve ever felt this way, you might want to take your team on a camping trip. Say what? 

When you’re in an office, it might be easier to do tasks yourself, especially if they’re easy and somewhat quick. But when you’re outdoors, you won’t always be able to do everything yourself. 

Take camping, for example. 

If you’re putting up a large tent, it takes more than one person to successfully put it up. Delegating tasks, in this instance, can save you a lot of grief and frustration. One person at each tent corner might raise the poles simultaneously.

After your camping trip, you’ll realize that delegating tasks makes things much easier for the entire team, and you become less stressed over the long term. Delegation can become second nature to you when you take your team on outdoor activities more often.

How Outdoor Activities Can Improve Your Leadership 

So far, this all might feel like theory to you, and you’re right–there’s nothing practical yet about how outdoor activities can improve your leadership skills. 

Let’s shift this to the practical side and use a hiking example.

Imagine taking your team out on the trails about 50 miles away on a hiking/camping trip. Now, these trails are very difficult as many of them are steep and can challenge even the most experienced hiker. And in some spots, working as a team is the only way you’re all going to get through it. 

How can this trip improve your leadership skills? And if you want to learn more about what outdoor activities improve leadership skills, check out this article.

You Learn To Adapt Quickly to Changes

When you’re hiking, the weather can change instantly, and if you don’t quickly adapt and make allowances for your team’s safety, it could spell disaster. Or, the trail might have sunk, and it’s no longer there.

The workplace can change almost as quickly. 

Your hiking trip shows you how to adapt quickly to changes, which can create more confidence in the workplace. While it might not be a matter of life or death in your organization, it can mean getting a huge contract or losing it, which in turn can be the difference between success and failure.

You Learn How To Set Realistic Goals

If your team is slightly out of shape and cannot hike several miles in steep, hilly terrain, it would be unrealistic to make this a goal. Instead, a more realistic goal might be to hike a mile on flatter terrain. 

Knowing what your team can accomplish in the workplace can also help you set realistic goals. If they can’t complete a project in 24 hours, maybe 48 hours or more might be a more realistic goal. 

Hiking, or other outdoor activities, can teach you that realistic goals in the workplace are just as important as they are in nature. If you want to know which outdoor activities improve leadership skills.

You Learn What’s Important To Your Team

Humans tend to talk about anything and everything while hiking. As you’re hiking with your team and away from the workplace, walls come down, and you’ll see an entirely different side of them. 

They’ll talk about their families, hobbies, passions, and other important things.

After your hiking trip, you’ll know what makes your team tick, which can create a bond with your team and improve team communication.

Natural Characteristics That Make a Good Outdoor Leader

Do you have what it takes to make a good outdoor leader? You might be an “okay” leader in the office, but the stakes aren’t as high or fast-paced as outdoors. When leading outdoor activities, certain qualities could make you a good outdoor leader.

Why are we talking about this? As you learn leadership skills outdoors, these natural characteristics can transfer to your organization and allow you to lead, rather than boss, your team.

You Want To Help Others

A good leader isn’t a leader because they want to live in the spotlight, but rather, they want to help others enjoy the spotlight too. A natural desire to help others achieve their goals creates a nurturing environment in the workplace and space for others to expand their abilities in outdoor sports.

Wanting to help others makes you a good leader in all areas of your life, not just outdoors.

You Listen To Others

A good outdoor leader listens to others. You don’t know everything, nor will you ever know everything, and when you understand this, you’re in a better place to truly and authentically listen to others. 

Leading outdoor activities, you might not know that a large storm is coming or the dangers on the trail ahead of your group if you’re hiking. If someone tells you something about these dangers, and you don’t listen, your group could face serious trouble.

This transfers to the workspace. When you listen to others with different skills and experiences, you can learn from each other for the organization’s good.

You Know You’re Not More Important Than Others

We all like to think we’re the most important people. A good outdoor leader knows they aren’t more important than the others on their team. 

Imagine if an outdoor leader thought they were more important than other people.

Who do you think they would think of during that avalanche scenario when getting out of the path? Themselves. The others would have to hurry to get out of the way, and without calm and logical leadership, lives would be lost.

Conclusion

Outdoor leadership allows you to practice your leadership skills through outdoor team activities and bonding experiences. When you’re ready to get a helping hand with your outdoor leadership skills, feel free to schedule a free coaching call with me. I look forward to talking with you!