Great Leadership in the worst of times

Don't Judge A Leader By His Title

Leaders aren't necessarily the heads of organisations, divisions or teams. They don't always have titles with Chief or Director in them. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Take Napoleon Bonaparte for example. He was credited with saying “a leader is a dealer in hope” - a quote I adopted as the early working title for this article. It certainly resonates with the central theme of optimism as the genesis of successful leadership in times of adversity. But the title was cut, which is where the Napoleon association ends and the relationship with a different kind of leader begins. A leader we can all admire and learn from.

Adversity has a way of drawing great leaders into its limelight and illuminating their intellect to think, and courage and conviction to act, in times of need.

Sir Ernest Shackleton - the polar explorer - was one such leader.

A Forgotten Hero Remembered

Before a resurgence of interest in the heroic era of Antarctica exploration during the early part of this century, Shackleton's exploits had hitherto been overshadowed by those of his contemporaries Sir Robert Falcon Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen - leaders of the second and first expeditions to reach the geographical South Pole respectively. Largely unheralded in his lifetime and debt-ridden at the time of his premature death, Shackleton left behind an ageless recipe for managing in a crisis. As fellow Antarctic explorer and Geologist Raymond Priestley wrote “for scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”.

With the south pole conquered and the world at war, Shackleton was a man in a hurry. Having secured a mix of private and public sector funding for his venture to traverse the 2000 miles of Antarctica, Shackleton would preside over the ultimate "lessons learnt" project. Unquestionably, by any measure, the mission was a lamentable failure: it achieved none of its original goals and its fate was sealed without the team ever landing foot on the continent. Yet, as great as the achievement would have been (in an era before mechanised transport and advanced communication technology), the alternate reality yields far richer insight into the actions and traits of crisis leadership.

As his ship, the Endurance, progressed at barely one knot through a thousand miles of polar ice, Shackleton must have feared the worse. As temperatures plummeted below -40DegC, the ice enveloped the ship - "like an almond in a piece of toffee" noted the entry in the Ship Storekeeper’s journal. For ten months, the crew resided aboard the ship locked in the ice floe.

With the hull taking on heavy water, Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship, recover all provisions and lay camp on the ice. From there, the party watched helplessly as their vessel was slowly crushed in an icy vice and eventually lost to the floor of the Weddell Sea.

What unfolded was a story so incredible that fiction could not compare

In the interests of brevity, I will refer the avid scholar to Shackleton’s own account [South: The last Antarctic expedition of Shackleton and the Endurance]. Suffice to say that under Shackleton’s leadership, all twenty-seven crew members survived for 497 days on a diet of penguin, seal and sled dogs and they did so in remarkably good physical and mental health.

The Shackleton Leadership Masterclass

Shackleton’s actions in isolation and under extreme pressure provide simple lessons for making good decisions in the worst of times.

Lesson 1: Optimism is true morale courage

On his return to Britain, Shackleton recounted his experiences in a series of lectures in which he oft cited the phrase "optimism is true moral courage". In using this deliberate metaphor, I believe Shackleton was talking of more than a primal emotional hope for success but as a source that sustained him and his team through the trials and tribulations that were to follow.

All leaders hope their venture will be a success. In this form, optimism is the motivational force for action over inertia. Shackleton’s belief in his transcontinental journey was infectious – persuading the government, investors, the merchant navy, and crew to commit to the (improbable) project. In all walks of life, Leaders exemplify this first type of optimism – but positivity is not always enough. Ask any Sales Manager about their best prospects and they become animated with enthusiasm that belies the true probability of success. Shackleton undoubtedly suffered from this optimism bias too – yet he was able to sustain momentum long after the sale foreclosed.

Optimism as true moral courage involves a confidence to face difficulties head on and a capacity for decisive action to overcome them. In difficult times, optimism is the energy that radiates through the team and sustains progress.

Lesson 2: Focus on reality

(no matter how much it differs from your own expectations)

Expend time on what you can control and influence, not extraneous or trivial matters that have no or little bearing on the problem or its resolution. Channel efforts on (overcoming) the barriers in front of you – not pontificating on root causes and the journey so far.

Knowing his actions meant life or death for his crew must have weighed heavy on Shackleton’s thoughts – yet he did not rue on his misfortune nor allow his thoughts to be consumed by “if only” events. Shackleton’s take on situational leadership can be summarised in his quote

“Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all”

Be willing to change your plans without delay or regret. All too often, leaders procrastinate in fear of making an ‘imperfect’ decision, preferring to delay until all information has been gathered, curated, and analysed and all opinions considered – by which time, it may be too late to act. As Shackleton wrote “Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results”.

Lesson 3: Change the people - or change the people

Perhaps surprisingly for a quest of its nature, when recruiting his crew Shackleton valued character over skills and experience. The job advert for the expedition read

“Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

Once at sea, Shackleton had to work with the team he had. His ‘command and control’ management style may not be de rigeur in modern offices with their cells of self-organised teams, but the extremes of sea called for obsessive unity of command. He chose to keep disgruntled team members close to minimise their (adverse) impact on others.

He did not ask for volunteers to make the 800-mile journey through the hurricane storms and 60ft waves - from Elephant Island to South Georgia – he selected the best people for the job and the personalities that would ensure high spirits and pull together in the team.  

Lesson 4: Leadership isn’t a popularity contest

Shackleton was a compassionate man who consulted with his crew and sought opinions, but he steadfastly held firm to his own decisions. Shackleton wrote

“Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in expectation of success.”

Shackleton made decisions in the interest of the whole, but that did not mean they were universally popular. When organisation culture values harmony over results, the result is usually disharmony!

Lesson 5: Do not tolerate complacency

Since the stock market crash in 2008, the UK has experienced year-on-year economic growth of between 1.3 and 3.1%. History shows us that when prosperity and growth come to be taken for granted, endemic complacency follows.

Complacency is the worst of all leadership sins as it skulks in operational inefficiencies, bad practice, poor quality of service, lasses-faire leadership, weak governance, and absence of strategy and foresight. When disaster strikes, complacent businesses are worst affected, often with devastating consequences for employees, customers and investors.

In the digital age new competitors can emerge unseen. For not-for-profit organisations too, the winds of change blow hard against their sails. External factors from all facets have the potential to disrupt your operating model and your very existence. Yet external forces aren’t the biggest threat to most organisations – it is themselves. Complacency is the hidden evil that permeates the institutional fabric of organisations, stifling the need for foresight and disruption, and dampening the drive for continuous improvement and innovation

One of the most effective deterrents to complacency I witnessed was whilst accompanying a Civic Leader on a bottom-to-top tour of her organisation’s 20 storey headquarters. This large public services organisation had just been awarded a prestigious accolade recognising them as the pre-eminent leader in their sector. On each office floor, the CEO cut an identical celebration cake as staff gathered expecting to hear congratulatory words of praise and gratitude. However, with the victory bell chimes still reverberating, the CEO chose to deliver a more powerful message:

• to prepare them of the greater challenges ahead;
• to reinforce their strategy - this achievement was an endorsement of their plans;
• to remind them that their ambition was greater still; and
• to thank them for their work now and in the future for only with greater determination and effort would they achieve their goals.

Like Shackleton, this Leader seized the opportunity to guard against complacency and in so doing to raise the expectation of higher standards - in this case, a new benchmark for public services. A couple of years later, the organisation’s reputation for excellence enabled it to secure investment to pioneer and disrupt contemporary thinking – in this case a blueprint for a Smart City that would rival the best cities in the world.

Lesson 6: Uphold integrity, but have fun

From the diary accounts of the Endurance crew and Shackleton himself, a clear picture emerges of optimism renewed through camaraderie, daily rituals, and teamwork and that these played a significant part in prevailing the most testing of ordeals.

Integrity and honesty earned Shackleton the respect and allegiance of his team but more surprising was the sense of fun in ritual tasks and meal times. Some years later, eight of the twenty-seven crew would join Shackleton on his subsequent expedition to circumnavigate Antarctica.

During the early days of fibre and microwave rollout across the UK, I was meeting with the Managing Director of one of the Telecomm companies that had just been awarded one of the high-value contracts. Our boardroom conversation was interrupted several times by raucous laughter and cheering from the adjoining office. Eventually, my host got up to investigate and invited me to follow. My experience at the time led me to believe the occupants of that room were in for a severe berating. It turned out to be an induction session for a diverse group of new starters. The MD took the opportunity to welcome each new employee individually, introduced me as a VIP customer and explained the context of our meeting for the company and their future. We then spent the next thirty minutes on competing teams in the induction problem-solving games. After we reconvened our formal meeting, I said how refreshing it was to meet an executive who was prepared to get involved with that kind of activity and ‘play’ along with the team. Without a hint of ceremony, he explained the company philosophy was intentionally simple so everyone got it from day one:

“Be There. Have Fun. Make Money. Give Something Back.”

This mantra is something I have reassessed many times when encountering different company cultures, markets, missions, business models – and it appeals as relevant today as it ever did. 

Professional endeavour should be energetic, stretching and fun. I have yet to interview anyone who left a position because they were having too much fun.

Closing remarks

Optimism is the common theme of the leadership lessons derived from Shackleton’s endurance through the worst of times - but they are just as relevant in good times too.