Qualifications
While many professions are concerned with how many degrees you have or what letters come before or after your name, adventure travel leadership is all about ability and experience out in the field. If you're a real adventure leader, then you're likely on-board with a travel company or adventure club.
You'll be expected to have experience, so get out there and let nature teach you her secrets. You'll also be expected to gain more experience, both through certifications and workshops at club-sponsored schools and by taking part in activities within the club.
While the specifics might change, the basics do not: no one starts out at the top, and if you want to get there, you've got to earn it by consistently treating your clients to a good time. And by not getting anyone killed. That goes a long way, too.
Then there are the unteachables. The ability to woo a crowd. The inherent sense of forward progress. The full awareness of your surroundings. Patience—with the trip, the clients, and yourself. Who you are as a person is just as important to this career as what you know. If you don't know who you are, we'd suggest not taking a bunch of strangers out into wild.
Of course, there are some little letters that you will need to be concerned with. CPR, for one: most professional adventure travel organizations will require their leader to be CPR- and First Aid-certified. GPS, for another, although we're not talking electronics: many trips will only require a good digital mapping system, but you also need to have a good internal sense of direction, as well as the ability to read a map and compass.
Trust us, whether you're stuck out in the wilds of Kansas or Kenya, you don't want to have to rely on the office worker who was in the Boy Scouts twenty years ago to navigate.