Mount Everest 1996 Leadership Case Analysis

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While it is impossible to pinpoint a single cause of the tragedy, we can definitely agree that several wrong decisions made from early on called for a recipe for disaster. Although tragic, we can definitely learn important lessons about leadership and decision making from the event of Mount Everest 1996. “The tragic event provides a learning opportunity that extends well beyond the realm of mountain climbing” (Roberto, 2002). Right from the beginning, Hall and Fischer were not carefully selective over choosing the best people to create a strong team that could carry out the task successfully. To be taking on a challenging issue that literally involved life and death, they should have been concerned about making a strong team right from the start. Sadly, their selection process was poorly done, with much focus on gaining popularity than concern for the people who chose to climb. For example, Dough Hansen who had previous unsuccessful attempt with Hall expressed reluctance to return. “However Hall lobbied him personally, offering Hansen a discounted fee for the expedition” (Roberto & Carioggia, 2003). Hall apparently felt bad for not being able to guide Hansen successfully to the summit and wanted to prove his capability and credibility, hence offering the expedition at a discounted rate. Here we can see that the ego definitely got better of “the leader”. The other person that Hall convinced into joining the group, through special arrangement, was Jon Krakauer, a journalist from “Outside” magazine. “Hall negotiated for advertising space in the magazine in exchange for Krakauer’s expedition fee” (Roberto & Carioggia, 2003). Quite surprisingly, Fischer had also been trying to convince Krakauer to join his expeditions because “he believed that an article by Kraukauer would provide great publicity for his fledging company” (Roberto & Carioggia, 2003). However, after

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