A Leadership Short — Ernest Shackleton
Courageous leadership in action
Sir Raymond Priestley, the acclaimed scientist who served on Antarctic expeditions with Shackleton, once wrote:
“For scientific leadership, give me Scott. For swift and efficient travel, Amundsen. But when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. But it is Shackleton’s last expedition, from 1914 to 1916, that is a compelling story of leadership when disaster strikes again and again.
The test.
In early 1915, during an expedition to the South Pole, he and the 27-man crew of the HMS Endurance became trapped in pack ice while sailing along the coast of Antarctica.
With few options, Shackleton and his men prepared to spend the next six months aboard the boat while waiting for the ice to thaw. They drifted for ten months before abandoning the ship just as it was being crushed in the pack ice.
Living in their lifeboats and surviving on seal meat and penguins, Shackleton and his crew drifted on ice floes for five months before finally reaching a small deserted island in the South Shetland Islands.
Exhausted, seasick, and dehydrated, the severity of their situation was getting worse. Shackleton made the difficult decision split the group up and try and reach South George Island, 800 miles away.
He and five other men managed to guide a 22-foot whaleboat through a dangerous stretch of the Southern Ocean for 16 days before landing on South Georgia Island. But they had landed on the deserted south side of the island, so the small band had to trek across the island to seek aid.
Four months later, and after leading four different relief expeditions, Shackleton finally succeeded in rescuing his entire crew from Elephant Island. Not one of Shackleton’s crew from the Endurance died throughout the ordeal.
Courageous leadership lessons.
Shackleton assumed ultimate responsibility for his team. Once the Endurance became trapped, Shackleton modified his mission from walking across Antarctica to a new one: bring all 28 men home safely.
Shackleton built unity and commitment within the team. Shackleton valued hard work and loyalty above all else. Yet, he didn’t expect this automatically; he intentionally fostered it. He also knew he had to keep the morale high, so he celebrated small, daily successes.
Shackleton was decisive. He made decisions and stuck to them without waffling. When he decided to leave the breaking ice floe, there was no turning back. He repeatedly adjusted his mission from one island to another, but he never waffled. He earned the crew’s confidence by being decisive.