The Outdoor Leader

The Outdoor Leader offers guidance, mentorship, and a roadmap for educators, guides, volunteers, and all outdoor enthusiasts dedicated to fostering a vibrant community

In The Outdoor Leader you’ll learn how to:

• Evaluate good decisions
• Communicate effectively
• Create and champion a vision
• Develop organizational systems
• Understand the value of mistakes
• Lead change through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Build trust and credibility
• Work through challenges
• Say yes to the adventure of personal growth

There is no one "right way" to lead--you don’t have to be the fastest, strongest, or most experienced to be a great leader. What the best leaders possess is a deep commitment to the greater good.

Drawing on her decades of experience as a national outdoor leader, Jeannette Stawski explores the elements of transformative leadership. Using real-life examples from the outdoors and every day, she focuses on the essentials: resilience, grit, integrity, tolerance for adversity, and highly developed listening and communication skills.

Whether you spend time in city parks, on mountains, in rivers, or beyond, you know that nature is a powerful teacher. Stawski shares inspiring stories from a range of outdoor enthusiasts and professionals, including Elyse Rylander, Kenji Haroutunian, Joe Stone, Stacy Bare, Victoria Lopez-Herrera, and more, as well as key principles from the Cornell Outdoor Education program, co-directed by Karel Hilversum.