Leading a business can feel like scaling Mount Everest blindfolded. You know the summit represents success, but the path is treacherous, the weather unpredictable, and one wrong step could send everything tumbling down. Just as mountaineers rely on Sherpas who have navigated the mountain countless times before, CEOs need experienced guides to help them traverse the complex terrain of business leadership.
The problem isn’t lack of effort or intelligence, it’s lack of perspective. When you’re caught in the day-to-day operational demands, it becomes nearly impossible to see the strategic forest for the tactical trees. This is where the Sherpa effect becomes transformative. Surrounding yourself with experienced advisers through a formal Advisory Board creates multiple layers of resilience:
· Emotional Resilience: Having a confidential sounding board reduces the psychological burden of leadership. When you can discuss challenges openly with people who understand the pressures but aren’t emotionally invested in the outcome, stress levels decrease and clarity improves.
· Strategic Resilience: Experienced advisers help you anticipate challenges and identify opportunities you might miss. They’ve navigated similar terrain before and can spot the warning signs of potential avalanches or point out paths to the summit you hadn’t considered.
· Decision-Making Resilience: External advisers provide objectivity that’s impossible to maintain when you’re deep in the business. They challenge assumptions, offer alternative perspectives, and help you make “Type 1 decisions” those big, consequential choices, with greater deliberation and confidence.
The productivity (CEO) multiplier effect
The impact on productivity is both immediate and compound. A 2014 study by the Business Development Bank of Canada found that companies with Advisory Boards showed 24% higher annual sales and 18% higher productivity compared to similar companies without such structures. This productivity boost occurs through several mechanisms:
- Focus Enhancement: Advisers help CEOs distinguish between urgent and important tasks, ensuring leadership attention goes to value-creating activities rather than operational firefighting. This clarity alone can dramatically improve how a leader spends their most precious resource – time.
- Capability Acceleration: Rather than learning through trial and error, CEOs can leverage their advisers’ experience to fast-track skill development and avoid costly mistakes. This acceleration effect means strategies get executed faster and more effectively.
- CEO Multiplier effect on the team: Everything the CEO does and does not do is ‘noticed’ and responded to by the leaders of an organisation. When CEOs feel confident and supported in their strategic direction, they naturally shift from micromanagement to inspiration-based leadership. This change unleashes discretionary effort throughout the organisation, creating a productivity multiplier that extends far beyond the CEO’s direct contribution.
- Network Leverage: Experienced advisers bring their professional networks, opening doors to partnerships, customers, and resources that might otherwise take years to develop organically.
The question isn’t whether you need experienced advisers, it’s whether you’ll seek them out proactively or wait until you’re struggling to breathe in the thin air of crisis leadership. Like Sherpas on Everest, the right advisers don’t carry you to the summit, they guide you along the safest, most efficient route while helping you build the strength and skills needed for the journey. They transform leadership from a solo endurance test into a supported expedition with dramatically higher chances of success. The mountain of business leadership will always be challenging, but you don’t have to climb it alone. Surround yourself with experienced guides and watch your resilience and your results reach new heights
