“Leadership in Crisis: Ernest Shackleton and the Epic Voyage of the Endurance” Case Study

“Leadership in Crisis: Ernest Shackleton and the Epic Voyage of the Endurance” case

Position statement

Ernest Shackleton displayed extremely successful leadership during the crisis as it had developed; however, I believe that a true leader should be able to have better initial judgment before embarking on a venture and should be able to better evaluate the possibility of success instead of succumbing to the “sunk cost effect” where the invested resources drive the continuation of the mission.

Criteria used in evaluation

There are essentially two parts to the evaluation of Ernest Shackleton: his failure to assess the risks posed by the venture and his superior leadership skills when faced with a crisis (which he should have avoided in the first place).

1. Failure to assess the implicated risk level properly.

* Wrong reason for expedition: the initial catalyst for the Antarctic expeditions was R. Scott’s book where Shackleton was described as a weak “invalid” – the latter accepted this as a personal challenge for his own South Pole quest and later the trans-Antarctic expedition.

* Artificially made-up objective: after the South Pole was reached, Shackleton literally invented a new goal to strive for which no one had even thought about (“the last big thing to be done in the South”) – the trans-Antarctic expedition. Essentially this served no greater purpose than feeding his ambition.

* Reluctance to learn from the success of his forerunners: though Shackleton seemed to learn from his own mistakes, he did not take heed from other’s success stories – despite R. Amundsen’s clearly successful use of skis and dog sleds, Shackleton preferred to march across Antarctica (since he had little skills in either of these activities), still hoping to make almost as good time as Amundsen.

* Irresponsible accumulation of debt: with the impending war and the lack of enthusiasm from sponsors, Shackleton sank far into debt in order to fund this...