Leadership Lessons - Team Performance, Resilience and Self-Management with Explorer Anja Blacha

About this episode

Anja Blacha shares her insights on mindset and self-leadership derived from her extreme expeditions and how they relate to business leadership.

Anja Blacha is truly exceptional: In the early 2020s she became the first woman to ski solo and unsupported from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole; a feat recognized by Guinness World Records. The expedition covered 1381 km in just 58 days, facing snow storms with winds up to 100 km/h and temperatures down to -35°C while Anja was pulling a 100 kg sledge with everything the explorer needed to survive. Anja is also among the world’s top mountaineers. As of 2025, she has climbed twelve of the fourteen 8000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen; including a Mount Everest summit without bottled oxygen in May 2025. In the Sparkr Podcast conversation with Anja, the goal was simple: Understand what kind of mindset and self‑leadership makes her achievements possible and what business leaders can borrow even if they don’t need to survive in the literal “death zones” of this planet. Boardrooms and C-suites rarely look like an Antarctica expedition but some of the underlying challenges can be similar: You must make decisions under uncertainty, pressure is high, the stakes are real and the easiest option is rarely the right one. In those moments, leadership is not a set of intentions…

People in this episode

Guest: Anja Blacha

Topics covered

• leadership
• team performance
• resilience
• self-management
• exploration

Keywords

• decision making
• pressure
• high stakes
• self-leadership

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Mount Everest, 8000 meter peaks

Places: Antarctic, the South Pole, Mount Everest, Antarctica, Switzerland

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