The following research surveys senior-level staff from two prominent outdoor adventure education (OAE) institutions – the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and Exum Mountain Guides (Exum). This study of individual’s preferred leadership styles seeks to identify the differences and/or similarities between OAE instructors and guides. Outcomes of this survey help confirm the null-hypothesis that, “when it comes to decision making, there is no difference between guides and outdoor adventure educators in terms of being task-oriented or people-oriented.” Furthermore, the research suggests that institutions offering professional development opportunities set training standards commensurate with the leadership styles that best match the corresponding industry subset. The research also entails in-depth study of historical trends and current training practices in the OAE industry as well as indexes various institutional subsets and their respective current training standards.

Keywords. Outdoor Adventure Education, Educational Adventure Programming, Outdoor Leadership, Professional Standards, Guiding, Instructing, National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), Exum Mountain Guides (Exum)