I’ve been consulting with the Madison College Student Life Office (formerly Madison Area Technical College) to help them develop and implement an outdoor leadership program for students. The program uses outdoor adventure experiences as a tool to help students develop their leadership skills. This semester is a pilot and yesterday we had an exciting, successful day exploring leadership styles while caving.

The program model uses one-day stand-alone experiences combining a leadership skill with an outdoor skill. Yesterday’s program was called Leadership in the Dark: Exploring Leadership Styles Through Caving. Ten of us traveled two hours to explore Popp’s Cave, a real cave near Richland Center, Wisconsin. This is not a tourist cave like Cave of the Mounds. This involved a 30 minute hike through the snow, helmets, headlamps, and lots of crawling and exploring the amazing, underground passageways and rooms. Once in the cave I presented a short experiential lesson on the leadership styles continuum, introducing students to the idea that one’s leadership style should vary based on the conditions present and the group’s needs. They broke into small groups to discuss the autocratic, democratic, and abdicratic styles. We talked about what each style looked like in action. Then one of the students took over the leader role and got to experiment with his style while we traveled through the cave. At the next room we explored the group development process (forming-sorting-norming-performing) and talked about how the leadership continuum and the group development process intersect. As we continued on two more students had the opportunity to be group leaders. At the transition of each student the group provided feedback to the leader on what worked and what could be changed next time.

Throughout the day our clothes got muddier and muddier, yet as we stopped to talk about leadership styles the students seemed to gain clarity on the subject. Some of them commented that they thought leaders always had to be “in charge” and present more of an autocratic leadership style. They were excited to learn about the other styles since, for some, that suited their personalities better. The opportunity to be leader of the group was also empowering as many had never had that type of leadership role before.

All of us having fun in the Mud Room, Popp's Cave

It was a wonderful day and at the end I was again reminded of the power of outdoor experiential education. When sitting in our offices, in front of our computers it’s sometimes hard to imagine how taking a group caving for a day could lead to so much learning, but it definitely does. Weaving together outdoor activities and leadership development is a powerful tool for learning and personal development.

Written by Amy Climer, Climer Consulting. Amy provides outdoor leadership consulting services to colleges and summer camps. Contact Amy for resources or assistance with starting an outdoor leadership program at your college.