Ernest Shackleton: High-Stakes Leadership

He advances the idea that modern organizational superiors seek a sense of their own mortality through manipulation of people and objects at the expense of their subordinates. Slavery, he asserts, is the state of being a mere instrument, and the organization can reduce man to the stature of a thing. Instead of constructing human relationships on the outworn patterns of labor and authority he advances the alternative: leadership based on deriving meaning, action and continuity in our work in complex organizations. He suggests that leadership should not be seen as merely a position someone holds but rather as a dynamic that occurs within a group or organization. He suggests that the face-to-face encounter is the essence of freedom and it is also the primary unit of analysis in self-discoveries. This new definition of leadership has three essential functions: (1) to help the group or organization understand its needs and potential (2) integrate and articulate the group’s vision and (3) act as a "trigger" or stimulus for group action. When viewed developmentally, this form of leadership can be enabling and fulfilling in Denhardt's estimation. However, this places a very high value on communication skills and tilts again toward Freud: what we feel and why. Denhardt further advocates the notion that leadership should be distributed throughout society because leadership's essence is to create an energizing effect. The necessary

This paper will briefly analyze the case study— Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership, and examine General Rebecca Halstead 's career history and how through her personal attributes, skills, experiences and challenges she developed into a successful leader and commander in the U.S. Army. Although General Halstead faced a number of challenges during her career, this paper will focus primarily on her leadership style and philosophy specifically with leading teams and dealing with difficult bosses.

Traditionally, analysis on roles for effective leadership surround corporate or military settings with clearly defined problems, discernable issues, and areas where hypothesis can be made, models formed, predictions tested, and outcomes verified. Analyzing a film like Seabiscuit for the roles of leadership present many interesting questions about leadership and what it means to be a leader. The film Seabiscuit chronicles the lives of individuals as they become intertwined to produce an outcome, training a horse to race. At what point do individuals stop seeing themselves, in their daily lives, as individuals and begin seeing themselves as members of groups having to take on leadership and

(STATE THESIS) When it comes to the leading their respective teams, Ernest Shackleton and Reinhard Heydrich’s approaches to leadership could not be more contradictory. This is not to say that their differences make either of them a good or misleader. Each individual demonstrated qualities that would classify him in either category. However, it is ultimately the intentions of the leader and the presence of or complete disregard for humanity that categorizes each man where he falls.

For an exemplary leader, what is one of the highest compliments that you could ever receive? Sir Ernest Shackleton was a British explorer who–after failing to reach the Southern Pole first–wanted to be the first to ever accomplish a trans–Antarctic expedition. On October 27th, 1915 Shackleton’s boat–the Endurance–was crushed by the pressure of the melting Antarctic ice; leaving Shackleton and his crew stranded in the Antarctic. On August 30th, 1916 after a treacherous one and a half years of living in the Antarctic and surrounding islands, Shackleton and his crew were rescued following an unimaginable story of survival. The qualities of leadership Shackleton exhibited that resulted in the survival of him and his crew were, having certain

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

Shackleton was the most essential part to the whole expedition. He is also often called “the Boss.” This just shows how much the men look up to him, because what the Boss says, goes. Shackleton is constantly trying to look after his men, after

Ernest was known as an explorer and he was honored with Knighthood. He wanted to be the first to reach the South Pole, but R. Amundsen conquered it before Shackleton; in spite of two prior attempts. He was confident in his abilities but was unsettled in many aspects of life. He was always looking for a better or faster way of doing things. He controlled his moods and emotion even during his most difficult times of the Endurance Expedition. Not much has been said about his humility, but he didn’t like to be wrong nor be questioned on decisions he made. This trait kept order and prevented a mutiny but as leader one needs be humble and willing to show their weaknesses. On the Endurance Journey, there was an occasion that he didn’t sleep for days nor change clothes for over a week. He was stressed, but would never openly admit it to his men. Shackleton’s emotional intelligence would have be one of his strongest traits

The author divides the book into four sections. In the first section, Captain Marquet describes how he first experienced being empowered by his commander Captain Pelaez of the USS Sunfish. Captain Pelaez overheard the author observe that it would be helpful if they could “ping” a merchant ship using active sonar for training. Knowing that his permission was needed to go active, Captain Pelaez suggested that Marquet merely make his intention known to him. The result of having the authority and ability to develop his team’s training resulted in a paradigm shift about effective leadership for the author.

The topic of this leadership case study is Ernest Shackleton. This paper will identify the development of Shackleton's leadership skills, provide examples and reflections of his abilities, and relate how he played an essential role in one of history's greatest survival stories. This study of Shackleton's leadership is set loosely within the framework of the five practices of exemplary leadership set forth in The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner, and will focus on the benefits produced by his management of team morale and unity (13).

The renowned 1962 motion picture, Mutiny on the Bounty sheds light on the leadership styles of Captain William Bligh (Captain Bligh) and Lt. Fletcher Christian (Christian) who were the two main characters in the movie. Both men occupied positions on the ship that was bound for destination in Jamaica, West Indies. Captain William Bligh throughout the film portrayed qualities of an autocratic leader which is also called authoritarian leaders interchangeably. Lt. Fletcher Christian however, had leadership styles of a democratic leader.

The book “Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders” by L. David Marquet, Captain, US Navy (Retired) is the book we selected to review. Our group selected this manuscript because of the inspiring story behind the captivating title. A combination of intrigue and necessity inspired our group to examine this manuscript for its valuable motivating material about leadership and the art of delegation.

Beginning in boot camp and continuing throughout my career, I’ve seen the Coast Guard promote the leadership model to be: “You” influencing “Others” to achieve a “Goal”. With all the different ways leadership can be defined, this simplistic model which has been permanently engrained in my thinking definition still rings true for me. As such, when defining my own personal definition of leadership, I align it to this same model. More specifically, while I support the fact that leadership involves influencing others to achieve a common end I propose that is not the whole story. Leaders must not be stagnant in their vision and must lend themselves to the possibility they may have to adjust their leadership styles depending on the goal. The best leaders are the ones that understand their own personality traits as well as those traits of the people they are trying to lead.

Shackleton also demonstrated that he was a pragmatic leader, capable of determining a vision and then executing that vision. In a sense, the vision was simple to get everybody home alive. Even that however was a big step, because many leaders would have simply accepted the idea that some sacrifices would have to be made. Shackleton instead determined that his vision would be something that the entire crew could buy into, and that with this buy-in he would be able to undertake the necessary tactical steps to ensure success. This can be seen for example with the trip to Elephant Island. This was risky, because of the conditions and also the fact that Elephant Island has no resources. However, there were a number of tough choices to be made from the point when the Endurance became stuck in the ice, and Shackleton made those choices. He never wavered from the fact that his

The British exploration team took salvage on the ice and set up camp. Now the crew and Shackleton had a new mission, to get back alive, along the way they faced many challenges. The weather was harsh, the food supplies were dwindling and the isolation of the crew was beginning to take its toll. Shackleton kept the crew lively by assigning them duties as they had on the ship, everyone had a function to perform in equality; this eliminated jealousy amongst the crew members.