Information for 
Empowering Effective Leaders
By Dr. Rigel Page, Harding University
It was a warm July day in the southern Colorado Rocky Mountains. We loaded 40-pound packs onto our backs and began the nine-mile trek to summit the 14,230-foot peak of Mount Shavano. Months earlier, our church youth group had planned a trip with Wilderness Trek to summit one of the highest peaks in the continental United States, and I was all in. After months of training and conditioning, I assumed I was ready.
I was not. And neither was my team.
Barely a half-mile past the trailhead, I was incredibly winded and exhausted. I looked up at the summit, and it might as well have been on the moon. The perception of an impossible task immediately triggered thoughts of defeat: "There is no way you can do this. The summit is impossible. I am not able to accomplish this goal."
Then came the justifications to quit: "I will only slow down the team. Don’t prolong the inevitable; quit now. You could die on the ascent." As I looked at the members of my team, their nonverbal cues told me they felt the exact same way.
But we did not quit. We had excellent guides who encouraged us, let us rest, and pushed us forward in the same breath. As a team, we encouraged each other when we saw team members who needed that motivation, and we shared each other's burdens, often divvying out equipment to those who were stronger. Two days and 13 hours of hiking later, we reached the summit.
As I look back on this accomplishment, I attribute our success to two critical shifts in perspective.
First, we stopped looking at the peak and started looking at our feet. We took one step at a time and set small, achievable goals.
Dr. BJ Fogg of Stanford University, in his book "Tiny Habits," highlights a concept he calls the "Tiny Threshold," where complex goals are broken down into micro-actions. For us, that micro-action was literally just taking one more step, then repeating that process until we hit the 27,000 steps required to reach the summit.
We would also look 40 yards ahead and set a goal to reach just that point before resting. We often thought we couldn't take another step, but a 40-yard stretch seemed within reach, so we pushed on. As Harvard Business School’s Dr. Teresa Amabile notes in her research in "The Progress Principle," we must prioritize momentum over milestones. Seeing progress creates the momentum required to keep a team moving forward.
Most importantly, when I was discouraged and filled with despair, I reached out to the Father, "Lord, give me one more step. Lord, give me the strength to continue. Lord, I cannot do this without You." Those prayers crossed my lips and my mind countless times on that mountain. As Isaiah 40:29 reminds us, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength.” I also reached out to my fellow hikers, and they reached out to me. With a strong prayer life and a strong community, we can conquer the impossible.
Every leader eventually faces a mountain that seems impossible to climb. When that day comes, resist the temptation to fixate on the summit. Focus on the next step, allow others to share the burden and don't forget to invite God into the journey. He is just as present in the boardroom as He is on the mountaintop.
Dr. Rigel Page teaches Leadership Theory and Practice for Harding University’s Master of Arts in organizational leadership program. An assistant professor for the Paul R. Carter College of Business Administration, Page brings real-world experience, calm energy and a great sense of humor into his teaching.
