Alison Levine served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition She also is the author of a New York Times best-selling book, “On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Everest and Other Extreme Environments.”
Heather Nevitt, Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Counsel, Inside Counsel: How do the some of the leadership principles of extreme adventure translate to the corporate world?
Alison Levine: One of the best lessons I’ve learned throughout my adventures is about embracing failure and using the experience to become stronger in the future. In order for organizations and teams to succeed and grow, they need to encourage a culture of failure-tolerance, because a lack of failure-tolerance stifles progress and innovation. If people are afraid to fail then they will never have the courage to take risks. Another lesson I learned involves managing fear and realizing that it is just a normal human emotion and it should never paralyze you, so fear is fine. Complacency, on the other hand, will kill you. It will do you in every single time. You have to be able to act and react quickly as the environment is shifting and changing.
