Useem likens Hammond's decision to that made by Sherron Watkins, the famous whistle-blower in the Enron scandal. "Watkins had gone to see Enron CEO Ken Lay in August 2001 to warn him about accounting improprieties. Unfortunately, Lay didn't listen but Watkins was thinking like a CEO. She knew that those now famous 'special purpose entities' that Andrew Fastow was creating were life threatening to the company and probably illegal. Of course, if Watkins had thought only of herself, she would have resigned and avoided the whole situation. But she thought like a CEO, thinking about what the company needed, and took the message to the CEO."
Several chapters stress that managers often must subordinate themselves to the collective interest of the group.
"One of the overriding themes is you need enormous self-confidence to be in a leadership position; it's stressful, risky and often unpleasant," according to Useem. "But, on the other hand, if you're given to too much hubris, you're going to step off a cliff. That was true of Al Dunlap, the cost-cutting CEO at Scott Paper and Sunbeam known as 'Chainsaw Al,' and Dennis Kozlowski at Tyco: They took such large risks they put their own companies and careers at risk; that's when true disaster can strike. The world of mountaineering can instruct one to be confident. You have to be confident to face those risks. But you have to have technical skills and be well prepared to know what you're going to do. If you're confident about the business and you don't take excessive risks to build it and don't think of yourself as invulnerable, as in mountaineering and rock climbing, you should be fine."
A Ceremony in Nepal
On the most recent Wharton trek to the Himalayas, in May of 2003, Useem and his fellow hikers attended a dedication ceremony marking the construction of the student hostel near the public school in the Nepalese village of Khumjung. The new hostel will accommodate 10 secondary-school students (grades six and up) from the distant village of Phortse. Without the additional sleeping quarters, the 10 students would never be able to proceed to secondary school because the school is too far from home -- a four-to five-hour walk each way -- to permit daily travel.
The extension was built with money donated by many of the 100 people who have taken part in the Wharton treks. So far, more than $33,000 has been raised. Some $15,500 was used to construct the extension; the rest will be used to help allay the students' living expenses. The fundraising effort will continue. Additional donations will be for a variety of purposes, including the hiring of a cook.
"We wanted to give something back," says Janet Stark, a New Yorker who took part in Wharton's 2001 leadership trek and is helping to coordinate the fundraising campaign. "This hostel was something that was really needed. Kids finish elementary school in Phortse but there is no higher education [there] and they can't just hail a cab" to get to Khumjung.
Stark describes the 2001 expedition as "a very emotional trip" in which she came to admire the Sherpas who carry the equipment for the climbers. "When you trek through Nepal, you go from village to village, and the people make your stay an incredible experience. We really got to know the people who were with us. What we left behind was housing that allowed a small group of children to continue their education. It was a way for me to give back to a country that provided me with an incredible adventure and an incredible learning experience."
Anne Libby, another trekker and fundraiser, says: "No Westerner could travel in that part of the world and not say, 'How can I help?' It's a very poor country."
Libby, a principal in a small business in lower Manhattan called Yoga Connection, has made three trips with Useem to the Himalayas. She acknowledges a tendency on the part of Westerners to romanticize the people in that part of the world, ascribing to them a kind of serene perfection that no one, Easterner or Westerner, could possess. She notes that the people of Nepal desire the same creature comforts as anyone in Europe or the United States. Nonetheless, she was moved by the kindness and consideration they had for one another, something quite unlike what she is accustomed to in large American cities.
"The people of the area made a very huge impact on me," says Libby. "They greet each other with the word namaste. It's a Sanskrit term. The way it was defined to me was, 'The divine spirit in me honors the divine spirit in you.' You can be walking mountains in a thousand dollars worth of gear and see a young porter in a torn University of Michigan T-shirt in flip-flops who has 70 pounds worth of stuff on his back. The stuff could be Coca-Cola or Pringles potato chips, things tourists need further up the mountain. Namaste: Hello wealthy Westerner. That one word very much made me think. I thought, 'What if we said this [to one another] in New York?"
She continues: "They want their kids to go to school. They want running water. They want TV. Many want the same things we want. Yet there is a quality of how people approach one another that's about caring for and respecting one another, regardless of what station of life that person may be in. There is a way the people care for one another that touched me."
The dedication ceremony in the school's auditorium was attended by teachers, members of the school board and about 100 pupils. After a school official made some remarks, Useem and a few of his fellow hikers did the same. This was followed by a round of traditional Sherpa dances that the school committee had organized for the hikers' benefit. "It was a wonderful moment to witness the ceremony and see the new structure with a plaque saying 'Wharton School," Useem recalls.
The Wharton trekkers have several other projects they wish to help fund in the months and years to come. Among other things, they want to try to raise money for the nuns of Deboche Convent in Nepal and for construction of teachers' quarters and the support of monks and teachers at the Tengboche Shedra, a monks' college also in the Himalayas.
The Wharton participants chose these projects after discussions with several nonprofit organizations that raise funds for worthy causes in Tibet, Nepal and India -- the American Himalayan Foundation, the Himalayan Trust and the Mountain Institute. The Himalayan Trust was founded by Sir Edmund Hillary, who remains involved in charitable work in South Asia today, 50 years after he and Tenzing astonished the world with their ascent of the 29,035-foot Everest.
Libby finds Hillary's devotion to the region and its people inspirational and a manifestation of one of the essential, if often overlooked, components of leadership. "Hillary said, 'How can I help you and serve you?' That, to me, shows the connection between leadership and altruism. The function of a leader is, "How can I serve you?"
