Leading beyond FEAR: What roller coasters can teach us about leadership

We could see the peak of the hill of the winding yellow track for miles.

Desperado, at that time the world’s tallest roller coaster, rose 225 feet over the otherwise vacant desert floor. It was an unusual sight on our four-hour drive from Los Angeles to Primm, on the Nevada state line. While slot machines called to my parents, Desperado called to my cousins and me – young thrill seekers with nothing but time.

I was 12 years old and I had just reached the front of the line for Desperado, only a few weeks after it had opened. It was no ordinary roller coaster and no ordinary experience for me: truly the first time I appreciated all the complex emotions that come with thrill rides. 

I remember reaching the front of the line, heart pounding, watching the previous riders roll in. I searched their faces for looks of joy: smiles, laughs, anything. But all I saw were blank stares, disheveled hair and faces in disbelief. No one said a word. I suddenly felt nervous.

That didn’t bother my cousins. When the seats cleared, they hopped on board and strapped themselves in. For a moment, I pushed down my nerves and followed suit. But during the long climb uphill I started asking myself, “What am I doing?” I looked down at our car in the parking lot and watched it get smaller and smaller as the hot wind started to whip across my face. “What’s the point of putting myself through this?” I wondered.

Suddenly, just before that first, long drop, I was absolutely terrified.

A Metaphor for Leadership

Roller coasters are the ultimate adrenaline-filled play experience. They take all the little thrills you remember from swings and slides and teeter-totters, and magnify them by about ten thousand. They give you a big dose of anticipation with a big dose of fear. The complex emotions they bring out make something inside (and outside) of you scream, “I’m alive!!”

I love roller coasters. I always have. I’ve come to see that the more time you spend on thrill rides, whether on literal roller coasters and on the metaphorical ones we all ride in leadership, the more you notice that the lessons are kind of the same.

• The climb. You can prepare yourself and those around you for what you think lies ahead. All smart people do that. It’s scary and it’s all part of the buildup and process that pays off in the long term. But even while you’re doing it, you know how uncertain the future is. At least 51 percent of you has to be ready to just go along for the ride. If you’re not willing to put up with some uncertainty, then roller coasters aren’t for you. Neither is leadership.
• The drop. How about those few seconds of plummeting, when it feels like your soul is going to leave your body and take your stomach with it? But your response is entirely up to you. You can white-knuckle it for dear life or let go and just embrace how it makes you feel. Either way, it won’t last forever and you’ll eventually bottom out for the next climb.
• The loops. Our bodies aren’t made for being upside down, which is really inconvenient in the top half of a loop. In leadership, you’ll face moments that defy logic and comfort, and you can’t address them all when you’re mid-loop. Sometimes, you have to just hold on and trust the track.
• The seat. It isn’t always about being out front, sometimes it’s better to step back and bring up the rear. Great leaders understand that the position you take depends on what your team needs most — setting the vision and clearing the path or providing support and letting others take the lead. The goal is to continue to move forward together, no matter where you sit.
• The end. When the ride is over and you’re safely back in one piece, don’t you feel silly for your earlier misgivings and fear? You always end up climbing out of your seat and heading for the exit to get on with the next thing, wondering why you were ever scared. You may even tell yourself, “Next time, I’ll enjoy the ride more.”

Surviving Desperado

A split second after the head in front of me disappeared, it was my turn to roll down the huge hill of Desperado from the top of the drop. The scare vanished as quickly as it had come. I stretched both my arms high into the air and screamed my head off, loving every second of it.

It was an incredible ride and, like the riders before me, I too arrived at the station speechless, my hair tousled all over my head and tears in my eyes from the dry Nevada wind.

Desperado, while shuttered in 2020, is still one of my absolute favorite coasters. I took at least a dozen rides on it after that first one and I was terrified every single time. I’ve ridden plenty of roller coasters since then that are taller and faster, and I’ll ride plenty more. I approach them all with the same mixture of fascination and fear. Leadership, much like riding a roller coaster, is a test of courage, trust, and your tolerance for chaos. Even when you encounter unexpected twists and turns, don’t forget to enjoy the ride.