High Altitude Leadership - (Jossey-Bass Leadership) by Chris Warner & Don Schmincke (Hardcover)

About the Book

The authors offer a new approach to leadership development based on key principles learned from their expeditions in the Himalayas and Andes. They then bring these lessons to the world of business, with examples from their experiences in coaching entrepreneurs and management teams.

Book Synopsis

Leadership is often a risky, lonely role possessing nearly unbearable lows and fleeting highs. Despite this emotionally and intellectually draining roller coaster, a handful of leaders deliver stunning results, with great consistency. They push past current leadership trends in order to achieve the most extremely challenging goals. They don't fall prey to the platitudes or cliches we see so often see in leadership theory. Instead, they succeed by recognizing and surviving the dangers that challenge them as they take themselves and their teams to higher levels. These rare individuals are those that Chris Warner and Don Schmincke call High Altitude Leaders. In High Altitude Leadership they show how to become that kind of leader.The authors present a new approach to leadership development, based on ground-breaking scientific research, field-tested under the most brutal conditions on the most difficult summits, and successfully applied in the training of executives, management teams, and entrepreneurs throughout the world.

From the Back Cover

LEADERSHIP IS OFTEN A RISKY, lonely role possessing nearly unbearable lows and fleeting highs. Despite this emotionally and intellectually draining roller coaster, a handful of leaders deliver stunning results, with great consistency. They push past current leadership trends in order to achieve the most extremely challenging goals. They don't fall prey to the platitudes or clichés we see so often in leadership theory. Instead, they succeed by recognizing and surviving the dangers that challenge them as they take themselves and their teams to higher levels. These rare individuals are those that Chris Warner and Don Schmincke call High Altitude Leaders. In High Altitude Leadership they show how to become that kind of leader.

The authors present a new approach to leadership development, based on ground-breaking scientific research, field-tested under the most brutal conditions on the most difficult summits, and successfully applied in the training of executives, management teams, and entrepreneurs throughout the world.

To thrive in the face of today's business challenges and tomorrow's unpredictable risks, you need to become the type of leader whose career, team, and company excels in the most extreme environments. You have to be the High Altitude Leader who uses every bit of your talent and every ounce of your strength to guide your team to peak performance. This book will show you how.

Review Quotes

"Fear, selfishness and arrogance - these are just some of the dangers that can threaten a climber's life, and in the high-threat world of global commerce and global security, they can destroy a country's or organization's future. Peak performance is about digging deeper to overcome the barriers of our own making. As Chris and Don assert, we have to dig deeper in order to climb higher."--Ralph Heath, Executive Vice President, Aeronautics, Lockheed Martin Corporation

"At last, something new has been written about leadership. The authors skillfully bridge the crosswalk between what is required of leaders in life and death situations scaling the world's highest peaks and the more mundane, but sometimes no less scary, halls of corporate America"--Cathy A. Trower, Ph.D. Research Director, Co-Principal Investigator Collaborative On Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) Harvard University, Graduate School of Education.

"Chris Warner is living proof that courage and intellect provide a powerful leadership combination. He and Don Schmincke serve as outstanding guides for exploring what it takes to lead an organization into difficult and uncharted terrain. If you're an executive who searches for the occasional inspirational gut-check, this book is a must for your shelf."--David Callahan, executive editor, SmartCEO Magazine

About the Author

CHRIS WARNER is a climber, educator, entrepreneur, and an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. He has led more than 150 international mountaineering expeditions (from K2 to Kilimanjaro). Chris has been teaching leadership and group development for more than twenty-five years. In 1990 Chris founded Earth Treks, whose chain of climbing centers serve over 100,000 customers a year.

DON SCHMINCKE is a dynamic keynote speaker and mad-scientist turned provocative management sage. From CNN to the Wall Street Journal, his use of anthropology and evolutionary genetics to remedy the high failure rates of management theories established him as a consultant renegade and leading global authority. In 1990 Don founded The SAGA Leadership Institute. Each year over one thousand CEOs find his work refreshingly irreverent and revolutionary for bottom-line impact.