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Alison Levine shares leadership lessons from Everest expedition
KOLOA, Hawaii — Special guest speaker Alison Levine’s climb to the summit of Mt. Everest helped her achieve her “adventure grand slam,” but if you ask her how it made her feel, she will tell you, “It just wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“Let’s put this into perspective — that was just a pile of rock and ice and standing on top of a pile of rock and ice for a few minutes doesn’t change you and doesn’t change the world,” Levine, sportswoman and former sales representative in the ophthalmic pharmaceutical medical device industry, said at Hawaiian Eye 2020.
What was important to and did have an impact on Levine was the lessons she learned along the way.
First, she learned that progress is multidirectional.
“For whatever reason, we think that progress has to go in one direction, but that’s not the case,” she said. “Sometimes you have to go backwards for a bit to get to where you eventually want to be. Don’t look at that backtracking as losing ground — look at it as an opportunity to regroup and regain some strength so you are better out of the gate next time around. Backing up is not the same as backing down.”
She also learned that fear is okay.
“[Fear] is just a normal human emotion,” Levine said. “Complacency is what will kill you. ... Fear is actually a pretty useful tool. Fear is only dangerous when it paralyzes you. You have to act and react quickly when you’re in these environments that are constantly changing.”
Everyone must be a leader, according to Levine.
“Leadership is not about title or tenure, how many people report to you or how many projects you oversee,” she said. “Every single member of a team regardless of title or tenure has a responsibility to help that team move toward a goal.”
It’s important to take action based on the current situation, Levine noted.
“The decisions you make are going to affect everyone around you,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how much blood sweat and tears you personally put into something — if the conditions aren’t right, you turn around, you cut your losses and you walk away ... you can always go back. A single person’s poor judgment can bring down the entire team. ... We cannot control the environment, only the way we react to it.”
Everyone needs to be willing to push themselves towards their goals even when it feels uncomfortable, according to Levine.
“The biggest takeaway from this experience ... is that you don’t have to be the best, fastest, strongest climber to get to the top of a mountain, you just have to be absolutely relentless about putting one foot in front of the other,” she said. – by Alaina Tedesco
Reference: Levine A. Presented at: Hawaiian Eye 2020; Jan. 18-24, 2020; Koloa, Hawaii.
Disclosure: No products or companies that would require financial disclosure are mentioned in this article.