Okay, since Boo brings it up, here’s an excerpt from the section titled “Consistency” in my new book
Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way:
One spectacular feat I witnessed was by a leader I had named Vitus. He took the team 30 feet up a near vertical road embankment held in place by rip-rap, boulders approximately four to six feet in diameter. That was actually an accident of sorts. I meant to turn left, away from the road, but my mental dyslexia got me at just that moment and in my best Sergeant Preston voice I thundered “Vitus. Gee!” Then in a Guns and Roses-like whine, I said “Oh, shucks!” or words to that effect. Well, “gee” I had said so “gee” it must be. Old Vitus charged up and around those boulders and the team scrambled up after him using everything but their teeth for traction. I think that son-of-a-gun enjoyed making me climb those rocks behind the sled.
And yes, just a month later on the Kuskokwim River, we were heading directly for a big hole in the ice, with the ice slanting steeply to the open water below. Vitus obeyed my “haw” command instantly and turned the team away from the hole, and as we did a big “crack the whip” maneuver, only the tails of my runners got wet. I’m not sure how deep the water was at that particular point but getting sucked under the ice by a deep, strong river current is not something I really look forward to.
Experiences like that cause a guy to take a no-nonsense approach to leader training. “Do what I say, or we might all die.” Leaders simply have to follow commands, and we really appreciate the good ones.