‘Our role as leaders is to set the stage, not perform on it.’

Linda A Hill, Harvard Business School

 

“I’ll check with Paul and let you know.”

“I’ll work for nothing. I just need some experience.”

“Like I said, I’ll check with Paul and we’ll get back to you.”

I was a university drop out. Well that’s probably overstating it. I’d had a place at Durham University to study Social Policy, but I crashed and burned with my A Levels. I knew I would and I didn’t want to go to university; not really, not then, for lots of reasons.

After politely declining a career in banking after three weeks in an A level entry training programme, I temped for a while in various places and spaces. The fun of a promotional job at the Daily Mail Ski Show in Earle’s Court led me to think I should tread water in ski retail.  I returned home and knocked on the door of the Ski and Climbing shop in Oldham, Lancashire. It seemed the most obvious next step.

Luckily for me Paul said “Yes” and I joined the team of three to shadow and learn.

He was a quiet, unassuming bearded man was Paul. And he knew his stuff. An expert in crampons, carabiners, quick-draws and belays. Climbers from miles around visited the shop and they all wanted to deal with Paul; the man they all called ‘Tut’. He was revered; a god like status but I didn’t know why.

“He was a mountaineer.” my Dad said one day. Paul Braithwaite had been on an expedition to climb Everest, but sadly he hadn’t made it.

In the naivety of youth, that seemed huge to me somehow, to have failed to make it when others did. I felt sorry for him; identified with the crash and burn. That was probably how he got hick nickname I thought… Tut-tut poor Paul, you didn’t make it. No wonder he’s so unassuming; he’s probably embarrassed or depressed. I never asked him about it and no one ever said. He was just Paul and he knew a lot about ropes.

Fast forward twenty years (or so). I’m in my role at Lancaster University and I met a friend and business owner Gillian for a drink. Just back from an event at the University, she was bowled over by the story she had heard. The then University Chancellor Sir Chris Bonnington had given a keynote on Leadership in the context of his 1975 conquest of the world’s highest peak.

You’d imagine he might be crowing a bit about leadership, but the story of 1975 ascent of Mount Everest by its Southwest Face, was the story of the trials and tribulations of a team. A team focussed not on being, but on getting the first men up that route to the summit of the worlds highest peak.

The credit in the end, according to Sir Chris, for the success of the 1975 Southwest Face expedition went to the best climber in the team. A man they called ‘Tut’ who, with Nick Escort, had climbed the mountain’s almost vertical Rock Band. Not only was this a key aspect of the ascent, by expending their efforts on this part of the climb, they knew it was unlikely that they themselves would be able to attempt the summit.

Tut-tut, how unaware was I back then? The self-effacing Paul Tut Braithwaite was a role model, a man to look up to and one of the greatest rock climbers of his generation. The 1974 team triumphed by their sacrifice, by his sacrifice. Paul was a leader setting the stage and the ropes for others to reach the dizzying heights of human achievement.

I reflected that  we are brought up in these fixed ideas of good and bad, right and wrong. back and white, success or fail. Fixed versus growth mindsets.

Reflection is where the learning happens. Thank you Paul for a late learning about the nature of authentic leadership, and for throwing me a line when I needed it most.

‘If we want to invent a better future, we need to reimagine our task. Our task is to create a space where everyone’s slices of genius can be unleashed and harnessed, and turned into works of collective genius.’

Linda A Hill