The Importance of Leadership as a Guide: The Captain & The Friend

One of the most important facets of being a tour guide or a tour leader is right there in the word: leadership. But while that often comes to mind someone who is domineering, the skills of leadership in guiding are quite different.

Essentially, guiding requires that you have a split personality. Or many personalities. You need to be a chameleon, changing shape as you deal with the various kinds of challenges and opportunities you’ll face: working with a bus driver, restaurants and hotels, tour guests from many different ages and nationalities… how do you ensure everything goes smoothly?

In my personal experience as a guide, I learned two fundamental “modes” or personalities that I had to have in my guiding toolkit: The Captain, and The Friend. Recognizing which mode you should be in at different times on tour can save you a lot of grief.

Friend Mode

This isn’t a hard one to understand. The friend is enjoyable to be around. You’re knowledgeable and entertaining, and you do a good job noticing everyone’s needs, and tending to them. The friend works hard to make a tour feel, well, effortless: just a group of great people hanging out together. You just happen to know a lot. And, importantly, you hide all the hard stuff to make sure when you’re showing up as a friend, you don’t look stressed or preoccupied.

But let’s be clear, it’s also hard work to be a Friend! You might want to take a break on the bus and zone out, but actually it’s quite important that you use some of the bus time once in a while meeting individually with the guests, walking down the aisles and bantering with them. One important tip? Make sure you systematically interact with everyone, because especially when you’re on a vehicle it’s easy to create a fun group of only those in the front, and the ones in the back miss out.

The hardest job of being the friend is noticing what each individual needs. A great friend is one who is a sensitive listener. And you need to check in with your guests, entertain them somehow, keep their spirits high, but also make sure that there isn’t bad blood between guests, ensuring that everyone is bonded together.

In other words, the Friend makes connections. And connection—between you, the guests, and the places you experience—is what it’s all about.

Captain Mode

So is that it? Just make sure you care for everyone, and entertain them? No. That would be great, but there are crucial times on tour when you need to step up into Captain Mode.

You can think of it as putting on your metaphorical captain’s hat. There are certain moments when the whole group should be paying attention, and aware of the gravity of the moment. And it’s important that your travelers know you have this mode in you, so they respect it when they see it! I’ve seen too many tour leaders become so friendly, that travelers think demands are requests, and I’ve seen drivers not respect what a guide has to say. They get steamrolled by people who may like them, but don’t respect them.

So, how do you be a tour leader?

Simply put, a captain is captivating. They capture everyone’s attention by being a commanding presence. (I’ve even seen tour guides bring along an actual captain’s hat, so their group knows when they mean business.)

Some other ways to signal that your group needs to take what you’re saying seriously include:

• Increase the volume of your voice, and take on a sharper, more authoritative tone.
• If you’re on the shorter side, find a “perch” where you can stand above the group.
• Use your arms to make larger, wide gestures that allow you to virtually take up more space.
• Make eye contact with everyone.
• Make sure you have silence before you start talking.

These are small indications to your travelers that right now, in this moment, you’re not their friend. It’s definitely not time to interrupt you, or to ignore you, or joke around and treat what’s to come as casual information.

Be Careful!

Being the Captain at specific times is crucial, or your tour can get derailed. But be careful: being too authoritative all the time, without also bonding with your guests, can distance you from the group and alienate people. Your endless take-charge attitude can be viewed as too aggressive for a vacation. They’ll see you only as an authoritarian presence. So, remember to switch into friend mode, ask questions of your travelers. Simply ask how they’re doing, or ask them to share something about their life. And remember, above all, that all tours are always somewhat imperfect. People are late. Drivers get lost. Travelers forget every instruction you give them, because their brains are in vacation mode. Be forgiving of humans being … humans.