The leader whose name was Shackleton

There is just so much to learn from Shackleton. If you haven’t heard of him, then you have not had the chance to know a true leader. Some call Sir Ernest Shackleton “the greatest leader that ever came on God’s earth, bar none”, while others just sit in awe, dumbfounded by what he did so many years ago.

He was an explorer, and not just, but a passionate sea-faring one who always challenges himself and sees no reason to do something that everyone else has done before. He tried conquering Antarctica. You’re like, “com’on, that has been done ten thousand times already right?”. Well, that’s not quite right now, and even more so during Shackleton’s time. That was back in the 1900s, during which Antarctica was unexplored and intrigued many. And Shackleton brought a team to try to complete an 1800 mile crossing of Antarctica on foot – that is seriously no mean feat. So the bottomline is they failed to do that and the whole crew suffered but everyone made it alive. Usually in such explorations, people die of a multitude of reasons – scurvy, cold, starvation being some of the few. But through Shackleton’s amazing leadership skills, all 27 of his men survived. There have been many books written on him and I will attempt to briefly explicate a few learning points that I took away from him.

It is always said that the team is the most important aspect of any project but is even more so in such dangerous explorations. During the expedition, there were many times that the ship was stranded and the whole team had to split up into different tents/boats/rescue teams. And it is during these splits that the whole team was at risk of even more danger – from themselves. For it is when everyone is split up that Shackleton cannot keep an eye on everyone and to be the pillar of strength for everyone. Instead, risks like internal poison by way of negativity get its chance to propagate through word of mouth. People inevitably talk amongst themselves and both positive and negative feelings creep insidiously into the team. The negative ones poison, and therein lies the greatest danger because it threatens the literal survival of the team members. So one of Shackleton’s greatest challenges was to try to mitigate this which is not an easy task because managing people is one of the hardest yet most important things to do. And even more so when you have people “speaking their minds” and spilling their guts out on how really they disagree with what the leader is doing or how they really did not think that they would survive. Such thinking creates a chain effect and both consciously and subconsciously affect all who hear them.

However, as it was to be proven, Shackleton’s greatest skill was in understanding the individuals that make up his team. He had a knack for knowing which people to place together in working teams or sleeping tents. At first seemingly diametrically opposite personalities were put together and everyone was wondering if that was a mistake, but it always turned out that Shackleton was spot on. He also tried to keep the poisonous people close to himself, in his team, so that he can better keep an eye on them. I find it hard and pointless to regurgitate the examples written about in the many books on Shackleton to put this point across because that would take far too many pages to fully bring out the examples, thus, I seek all of you to read his story. Suffice it to realize that despite the extreme cold – average of negative 50 Celsius(!) and they were barely clothed and didn’t have the extreme weatherproof clothes that we have these days, and even then those clothes that they had wore out quickly, and not seeing the sun for 6 months/year; extreme hunger – food had to be rationed; and also the resulting extreme discomfort from the cold, hunger, lack of proper facilities; Shackleton still managed to lead his team and dispense negative thoughts by always focusing on keeping the human being in each of them happy. For example, when it comes down to having to throw away things to lighten the loads on their backs and boats, Shackleton asked the team to keep their diaries and even a banjo. These proved to be lifesavers as these preserve hope in the men’s hearts – and that was most important.

In the end, the entire team survived on hope through Shackleton’s extraordinary leadership skills. I wish I could have been there to view the whole two years or so that they were marooned there. But I guess watching the movie might have to do.

Links:

– Antarctic weather (you can even find a quote by Shackleton here) (to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius: subtract 32, multiply by 5/9)

Technorati Tags: Shackleton, Leadership, Antarctica