Leadership Development

Transcending Challenges and Transforming Teams Through Positive, Powerful, and Custom Leadership Development Experiential Adventures

To become effective leaders (rather than simply managers) and win the respect and trust of their colleagues, emerging leaders need practice. They need practice creating a vision, honing communication skills, handling challenging situations, and making effective decisions. Colorado Wilderness Corporate and Teams’ outdoor leadership development programs inspire emerging leaders to challenge themselves and gain the confidence required to lead. Compared to classroom programs, our wilderness-based exercises require participants to bring a team together and make critical decisions in an authentic way. Briefing, debriefing, and feedback from our staff and their cohorts enable emerging leaders to translate course learning into worksite application.

Colorado Wilderness works closely with your company to design the right program for your context and needs. Sample leadership development program components include:

Translating Leadership Values into Practice. Emerging leaders take responsibility for organizing team efforts, generating choices, and demonstrating resolve. Activities require leaders to communicate clearly, maintain control, and respond to others’ reactions in high-stakes or time-sensitive situations.

Role Reversal. Participants plan and implement tasks typically done by colleagues both below and above them in the company hierarchy. Debriefing allows emerging leaders to recognize colleagues’ strengths, challenges of their roles, and opportunities to improve communication and productivity.

Taking a Step Back. Rotating through a series of active challenges, emerging leaders take turns observing teammates’ interactions, leadership dynamics, stress management, and adaptability. Peer feedback allows for critical insights and worksite application.

Leadership Challenge. Participants must model the way through a series of activities as they enable others to act, ensure inclusivity, demonstrate an understanding of vulnerability, and make the impossible possible.

The Art and Science of Storytelling. As the natural world encourages more open thinking, participants discover first how to tell their own story (through writing, photography, and other means). Then they figure out how to collectively tell the story of your organization. By building the story together, participants see how each of their “characters” is critical to the storyline or the path for moving the organization forward.

Executive Retreats

A productive executive team needs uninterrupted time to strategize, examine strengths and weaknesses, and determine paths to success. Our Executive Retreats are built to bring out the best in the company’s top brass. We use programs that test physical and cognitive skills, and help companies understand how their executives deal with various situations. Our goal is to create a program that’s engaging and responsive to an organization’s needs, while facilitating individual and team growth.

Our custom program is based on your company’s unique structure and culture. No two programs are the same. Samples include:

DiSC or ISI Assessment and Experiential Workshop. Both the DiSC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness) and ISI (Influence Style Indicator) are assessment tools used to identify personal preferences and behaviors. With self-knowledge and knowledge of others’ preferred styles, executive teams learn how to better tap into each others’ strengths, minimize conflict, and solve problems. We employ the results of these assessments in designing challenging outdoor experiences that actively demonstrate each team members’ strengths. These experiences also show how different strengths complement one other to drive success.

Overcoming the Challenge. As executives strive to improve all aspects of their organization, they’re often confronted with tough decisions about prioritization and growth. Organizations struggling with specific challenges benefit from time dedicated to addressing the problem. We customize a program that uses the outdoors to probe the sources of the struggle and find solutions. For example, we examine the fears experienced when rock climbing to investigate fears of organizational change and managing those fears. We frame each activity to stimulate “out of the box” thinking and debrief as a team to foster collaboration and effective communication.

Leadership 360 and Strength Finder Experiential. We use the teachings of Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound, and explore the Expeditionary Learning Principles (e.g., self-discovery, empathy, and collaboration) to bring out the best in executive leaders. We’ll discover how the natural world can be used to instill confidence, build leadership skills, foster collaboration, and improve decision-making skills.

Bringing Your Leadership Philosophy to Life. Many executives hold a strong philosophy concerning leadership within their company. Beyond personal leadership styles, these philosophies, sometimes inspired by prominent writers in the field, can guide the entire executive team. However, a theoretical understanding of a specific philosophy and the ability to bring that philosophy to life through action and modeling can be quite different things. In this highly customized program, we work closely with your company’s CEO to understand their leadership philosophy. We then design a series of activities that give the executive team experience in making that philosophy actionable.

Let us create a uniquely tailored experience for your executive team! Call 720-242-9828 to inquire about our executive retreats and leadership development programs.