Wilderness Drum > Wilderness Writings > Team Building

Team Building in the Wilderness
Steve Beyer

Introduction
Campfires
Conflicts
Confrontation
Cooking
Council
Darkness
Decisionmaking
Development
Drumming
Followership
Leadership
Meetings
Stress
Trust
Wilderness Ethics

Leadership

It is not the purpose of this guide even to try to discuss issues relating to wilderness leadership generally. Probably the single best text on the subject is Graham (1997). Priest & Gass (1997) is much more extensive and detailed, and relies on a considerable amount of published research, and Drury & Bonney (1992, pp. 86-97) is thorough and concise; but Graham remains a classic of warmth, good humor, and solid common sense.

Leadership and Influence

As taught at SOLO's Outdoor Wilderness Leadership School, an effective outdoor leader simply helps the team do what the team has already committed to do. An effective leader follows all the rules of the good follower, plus something extra. What the leader provides the team is a common vision, enthusiasm for that vision, a structure for participation, and guidelines for safe participation. In other words, an effective wilderness leader articulates the team vision, teaches the outdoor skills necessary to accomplish that vision, and clearly presents the risks of the wilderness activity. To do this, the leader must have language skills, people skills, and assessment skills.

Thus, in many ways, leadership may be thought of as matter of power or authority – that is, the ability to change what other people do. One generally accepted formulation (French & Raven, 1959) speaks of six bases of social power – reward, coercive, referent, legitimate, informational, and expert.

Reward power is the ability to give out rewards for behavior, from simple attention, to verbal praise, to letting the team member be the first one in the shower.
Coercive power is the ability to apply sanctions for behavior, from disapproval to timeouts; this type of power is found particularly in such wilderness groups as those involving adjudicated youth, where the leader may in fact have the power to send a participant back to jail.
Referent power comes from being liked or admired.
Legitimate power is the power of being in a high-status role or being an authority figure.
Informational power stems from having information that others do not have – for example, knowledge of the route to be taken or the location of water sources.
Expert power is achieved by having knowledge and skills that other people in the group do not possess – the ability to make a fire, for example, or locate a desirable campsite, or fix a broken cookstove.

These sources of influence interact with other factors, such as skill, experience, personality, and charisma. An effective wilderness leader must have considerable self-awareness. A likable leader may be just as effective as an extremely knowledgeable one, but the sources of that effectiveness are different. Similarly, legitimate power may be influential at the start of a wilderness trip, to be replaced by referent power or expert power as the trip progresses.

Leadership Styles

In the wilderness context, the primary leadership styles are frequently described as autocratic, democratic, and abdicratic. An autocratic leader makes a decision and then convinces the group to follow; a democratic leader shares decisionmaking responsibilities with the group; and an abdicratic leader abdicates decisionmaking responsibility to the group – although a good abdicratic leader remains closely involved in case there is a need to intervene in the process (Buell, 1983; Drury & Bonney, 1992, pp. 87-89; Priest & Gass, 1997, pp. 64-65). Similarly, SOLO's Outdoor Wilderness Leadership School describes a set of three leadership structures – democratic, in which all participants form a peer group with equal voice and equal responsibility; didactic, in which the leader functions as a teacher or instructor; and chain of command, in which an autocratic leader heads up an incident command structure in order to manage a crisis.

It is perhaps more useful to see such styles as points on a continuum from leader control to group control. At the leader-control end of the continuum, the leader decides and announces the decision. As control passes to the group, the leader may decide and then persuade the group, or decide and then invite questions. In the middle of the continuum, the leader may present the group with tentative ideas that are subject to change. And, as group control takes over, the leader may set the boundaries but have the group decide within those boundaries, until, finally, it is the group alone that both sets the boundaries and makes the decisions (Drury & Bonney, 1992, p. 87).

Leadership Style and Personality

Leadership styles can change according to the nature of the group, the stage of group development, and the situation. In addition, different people have different basic leadership styles that suit their personality. Some people are communicative; some are not. Some smile frequently in a natural friendly way, while others smile rarely. For example, a leader described by Graham was a woman of very few words. She knew that her quiet competence could inspire great confidence from her team members. She also knew that others might misinterpret her silence as aloofness or indecisiveness, so, right at the trailhead, she would joke, ”I’m not dead out there, folks, just quiet” (1997, p. 33).

The COLT Model

According to the Conditional Outdoor Leadership Theory (COLT), leadership style can vary on the basis of concern for task, relationship, and conditional favorability (Priest & Chase, 1989; Priest & Gass, 1997, pp. 64-66, 240-243). According to this model, with increasing concern for task, or getting the job done, effective leaders adopt an autocratic leadership style. With increasing concern for relationships, effective leaders employ an abdicratic style. When these concerns are equally important, the model predicts that effective leaders will utilize a democratic style. Further, differences in conditions – environmental dangers, leader proficiency, group cohesion, member competence – can also shift the style in one direction or another. Immediate danger can require autocratic leadership; a cohesive and competent group may well flourish under an abdicratic leader, even under adverse conditions.

The COLT model can also be applied to the stages of group development (Attarian & Priest, 1994; Priest & Gass, 1997, pp. 65-66).

Getting acquainted Here the focus is on the group's tasks-setting goals, orienting new members, developing group identity. At this stage, the leader's concern for developing relationships is secondary to his or her practical responsibilities, so an autocratic style is often appropriate.
Struggling forward At this stage, conflicts erupt and concern for relationships becomes as important as practical tasks. Group members need to feel free to express grievances, address topics of concern, and test group support. At the same time, a task orientation remains important; goals must be adapted, priorities adjusted, and jobs accomplished. According to the COLT model, with task and relationship equally important, a democratic style becomes more appropriate.
Becoming personal With tasks well in hand, the concern for relationships becomes primary. Thus an abdicratic style can most effectively support group members in working out their own rules and relationships. An effective leader at this stage facilitates group discussion, more as a peer or colleague than as a director.
Working together Here, the concern for task once again becomes important, as the team begins to produce excellent work. Yet the leader's concern for task is relatively low, since the team is functioning on its own. Thus, with concern for task once again balanced with concern for relationship, a democratic style becomes most appropriate. The leader should maintain the group in high-performance mode, while being alert to the possibility that the team may slip back a stage or two and require intervention in a different mode.
Saying goodbye Finally, the leader's focus once again turn to specific tasks-to create a sense of closure, help team members integrate the experience, promote the transfer of learning beyond the wilderness setting, and facilitate communication. The leader's concern for accomplishing these tasks takes precedence over concern for relationships, so a relatively more autocratic style becomes appropriate.

Leadership functions

Being a wilderness leader is really – as lawyers like to say about such things as property rights – a bundle of sticks. Leadership roles in the wilderness include hands-on management, decision making, navigation, weather prophecy, keeping a trip log, scouting, counseling, encouraging, teaching, keeping the group together, and collecting stragglers. Just as other group tasks – such as cooking, setting up shelter, digging latrines, and cleanup – are distributed among group members, it is certainly possible to rotate these leadership functions among members of the group as well (see, e.g., Drury & Bonney, 1992, pp. 149-150).

Thus, for example, responsibilities such as the following can be split up among group members on a rotating basis:

Leader of the day The leader of the day determines rest stop times and locations, lunch stop time and location, when and where the campsite should be established, and has overall responsibility for the group and ultimate decisionmaking authority.
Counselor The counselor speaks with members of the group – or moves back and forth among the group while on the trail – to stay aware of how participants are feeling; the counselor may also lead the morning weather report, deal with interpersonal conflicts, and generally help and encourage team members.
Scout The scout is the group navigator. The scout reviews the map, picks the route, anticipates rough terrain or changes in altitude, and goes ahead of the group to make sure the route is accessible.
Logger The logger keeps the group record – the distance traveled, the changes in altitude, the time taken. The logger is often also the group timekeeper, announcing when meetings are to begin and making sure that meetings end on time.
Sweep The sweep walks last on the trail. It is the job of the sweep to make sure that no stragglers get left behind, and that those who leave the group to take care of personal needs off trail are brought back into the line.

Other functions that may be delegated could include weather prophet, environmental impact assessor, campsite locator, and edible plant finder, depending on the skills and expertise of group members, or the ability and willingness of the group leader to teach the relevant skills. In all of these cases, shared leadership can build trust and participation within the group. Even more, having team members skilled in an increasing number of leadership functions is a way for the team to survive in the face of a sudden catastrophe.

References

Attarian, A., & Priest, S. (1994). The relationship between stages of group development and styles of outdoor leadership. Journal of adventure education and outdoor leadership, 11(3), 13-19.

Buell, L. (1983). Outdoor leadership competency: A manual for self-assessment and staff evaluation. Greenfield, MA: Environmental Awareness.

Drury, J., & Bonney, B. (1992). The backcountry classroom: Lesson plans for teaching in the wilderness. Old Saybrook, CT: Globe Pequot.

French, J., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In Cartwright, D. (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150-67). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Graham, J. (1997). Outdoor leadership: Technique, common sense & self-confidence. Seattle, WA: The Mountaineers.

Priest, S., & Chase, R. (1989). The conditional theory of outdoor leadership style. Journal of adventure education and outdoor leadership, 6(3), 10-17.

Priest, S., & Gass, M. (1997). Effective leadership in adventure programming. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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