Ethical Outdoor Leadership: Conversations Between Generations

Ethical frameworks related to outdoor recreation, adventure education, and outdoor education have often been framed within philosophical perspectives, dilemmas and decision-making (Hunt, 1994; Wurdinger & Potter, 1999), environmental ethics, and codes of ethics or professional standards. These strategies provide understandings related to critical thinking, processes of analyses, and particular points of views. Ethical outdoor leadership, however, is a "performative" identity within a complex phenomenon. Butler (1993] explains that, "Within speech act theory, a performative is that discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names" (p. 13). Therefore, ethical outdoor leadership relates to how leaders construct an ethical reality through every day acts. The actions of an ethical outdoor leader are grounded in and influenced by what has gone before (e.g., the codes of ethics, philosophical traditions, dilemmas) and these constructions are then performed within a specific arena (i.e., adventure education, outdoor recreation, and outdoor education) by specific individuals. These performative acts are not chosen, but suggest that ethical outdoor leadership is constituted by performative acts, which repeated come to form, take shape, a "coherent" identity.

Outdoor leaders, who have been selected as ethical by three or more people in the field, were interviewed in this research. There is no definition of ethical put forth, since the purpose of the research is to discover what the field means by ethical outdoor leadership. The analyses of interviews of identified ethical outdoor leaders (Bert Horwood, James Raffan, Wendy Pieh, Louise Karch, Sean Ryan, Mick Lautt, Zac Robinson, Daniel Vokey) primarily from Canada, and a few others (Wiremu Solomon and Malcolm O'Neill from New Zealand, Myron Thompson from Hawaii, Arne Naess from Norway, and Brett Lashua from the United States) were analyzed using theoretical work about performative identities. Rather than analyze what individual leaders described as ethical outdoor leadership, the analysis shifted to how they answered questions, what examples did they choose, and the roles they selected for themselves during the interview. Repeated readings of the interviews were necessary to identify elements related to performativity. Two aspects of the interview were explored in detail: how an individual rated him or herself as an ethical outdoor leader, and what was necessary for training an ethical outdoor leader.

Although confidence is required to perform as a competent outdoor leader, the leaders interviewed reported a humorous humility about their own struggles to be ethical. Comments ranged from "Completely flawed," to wondering if, "I am capable of being ethical." Such insights led into the comments about training ethical outdoor leadership, which required mentorship, supporting developing leaders through struggles and mistakes, and collaboratlvely thinking through ethical decision-making. As each leader described training needs they "performed" their own ethical outdoor leadership by placing themselves in service of newer leaders struggling with ethical ways of leading.

The analyses provided a different perspective on ethical outdoor leadership that complements and challenges the content of ethical outdoor leadership that focuses on specific ethical beliefs, philosophical frameworks, or codes of ethics. The performative aspect of ethical outdoor leadership moves us to consider an individual's actions, decisions, and discourses in addition to intellectual understandings. Understanding how ethical outdoor leaders perform their ethics allows us to merge insights from the psychological realities of leadership with philosophical ideals.

References

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of "sex." New York: Routledge.

Hunt, J. (1994). Ethical issues in experiential education (2nd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Wurdinger, S., & Potter, T. (1999). Controversial issues in adventure education: A critical examination. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Karen M, Fox, Ph.D., Faculty of Physical Education & Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. E-mail: karen.fox@ualberta.ca

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