The Empathy Advantage

7Pilot Your Expedition Team

On May 24, 2010, Alison Levine reached the summit of Mt. Everest. That touch at the top of the world completed her Adventure Grand Slam, conquering the highest peaks on every continent and reaching both the North and South Poles.

As Levine tells it in her must‐see Ted Talk,¹ reaching the summit was not nearly as important as “the journey and how you will use its lessons to be better and stronger.” The author, leadership consultant, and inspiration knows of what she speaks. Her 2010 summit wasn't her first attempt.

Nearly a decade before, Levine captained the first American Women's Expedition, a quest that turned back by bad weather just a few hundred feet from the summit. “You have to be able to make tough decisions when the conditions around you are far from perfect,” Levine told her audience at TedX Midwest in 2011. (Levine recounts the story of this expedition in On the Edge, published in 2014.)

Conditions were far from perfect when she set out for the top of Everest a second time on May 24, 2010. She describes ominous weather, snow and wind with “absolutely horrible” visibility. With sheer drop‐offs on either side of the trail and fellow climbers turning back, Levine pressed forward. “Sometimes,” she said, “you don't have to have total clarity to just put one foot in front of the other.”

That is quite possibly the most important insight for leaders embracing the new challenges of the Human Value Era. You may not always have a clear line of sight ...