Over the holiday period, I was captivated when reading the full account of Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole from 1914 to 1916. It is a compelling story of leadership when disaster strikes again and again.
For anyone who hasn’t encountered the story, Shackleton had a bold, potentially history-making goal: he and his team would be the first to walk across the continent, starting from the coast of the Weddell Sea, traversing the South Pole and ending up at the Ross Sea.
However, judged by its initial objectives, the expedition was a colossal failure. His ship, the Endurance, never reached Antarctica. None of its 28 crew members set foot on the continent. The journey strained Shackleton’s finances to the breaking point, and at the end of it, in late 1916, he found his accomplishments eclipsed by the horrors of World War I.
I was particularly struck by his ability to respond to constantly changing circumstances. When his expedition encountered serious trouble, he had to reinvent the team’s goals. He had begun the voyage with a mission of exploration, but it quickly became a mission of survival and he improvised, adapted and used every resource at hand to achieve it.
Having lost his ship to the massive ice floes in October 1915 the men were left stranded on the ice with three small lifeboats, several tents and minimal supplies. The priority became the safe return to land and civilisation. Shackleton realized that he had to embody the new survival mission — not only in what he said and did, but also in his physical bearing and the energy he exuded.
He knew that each day, his presence had huge impact on the mindset of his men. He managed his own emotional intelligence (to use a modern term) to keep his own courage and confidence high. Even when these flagged, he never let his men know.
Once they managed to free themselves from the ice, the crew managed to sail to the deserted Elephant Island. From there, one boat was launched and made it (eventually) to South Georgia and rescue. However, it took 3 attempts to break through the pack ice and rescue the remaining crew from Elephant Island.
Then there is the question of responsibility for the Aurora, whose crew had been charged with setting out supply depots for the Endurance party as it crossed the continent. After unloading men and supplies in early 1915, the Aurora was also trapped by pack ice and carried into open waters, stranding 10 men. Three of them perished before Shackleton and others arrived in January 1917 to rescue them.
Shackleton assumed ultimate responsibility for his team. Perhaps he recognized that he was partly to blame for the crisis that befell the Endurance. Perhaps his naval training instilled in him a deep sense of loyalty and obligation to his fellow crew members.
The men themselves understood this, and most, in turn, offered him their commitment. Shackleton’s team knew that whatever came before them on the ice, their leader would give his all to bring them home alive. This knowledge was crucial to achieving the mission, and this commitment is key today when so much is changing so fast.
Looking at recent events such as the financial crisis of 2008; the gulf oil spill of 2010; the Japanese nuclear disaster, the debt-ceiling debacle and continuing Euro-zone crisis it seems to me that effective leaders must also have to change course midstream — jettisoning earlier standards of success and redefining their purposes and plans. And we could do with far more of them!
David Foster Wallace wrote “Real leaders are people who help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own”.
Shackleton exemplified this kind of leadership for almost two years on the ice. What can you learn from his actions?
With thanks to Nancy F. Koehn
