People on the Mountain: Why the Team Beside You Matters Most
In the early 1990s, Malcolm Daly was one of the most respected alpine climbers in the United States. On one expedition, he and his partner, veteran climber Jim Donini, set out to scale an unnamed peak in Alaska — a mountain few had ever attempted.
As they neared the summit, tragedy struck. Just 15 feet from the top, Daly’s handhold gave way. He fell ten feet — and then his ice anchor ripped free. What followed was chaos: he tumbled 20 feet, then 50, then 100, crashing into Donini and slicing Donini’s leg with his crampons. Daly continued to fall another hundred feet, shattering both his legs before his rope finally caught him. Only two internal strands of his climbing rope kept him from plummeting another 3,000 feet to his death.
Bleeding badly, Donini climbed down to where Daly hung, secured him to the wall, and made a gut-wrenching decision — he had to leave his injured partner dangling on the mountainside in subzero temperatures while he descended the mountain alone to find help.
What Donini did next was almost superhuman. With a damaged leg and brutal conditions, he made a world-record descent — 3,000 vertical feet without a single mistake. Forty hours later, a rescue team reached Daly. Against all odds, he survived.
When I reflect on that story, I’m struck not only by the grit and determination both men showed, but by something even more profound: Daly survived because of who was on the mountain with him.
In business — as in life — success is rarely about how talented you are or how strong your individual performance might be. It’s about who’s climbing beside you when things go wrong. The right people don’t just share your victories — they shoulder your burdens, cover your blind spots, and make the impossible survivable.
Every leader, no matter how capable, will eventually face their own “fall” — a project collapse, a market downturn, a personal crisis. In those moments, your safety line isn’t your résumé or your skill set. It’s the strength and trust of the people you’ve chosen to climb with.
The lesson is simple but powerful: Be intentional about who’s on your mountain. Build teams that can hold the rope when everything starts to shake. Hire for character and competence. Invest in relationships that run deeper than job titles. And be the kind of leader others would trust to climb with.
Because when the fall comes — and it will — your survival might just depend on it.