The release of the LEGO Endurance set sent me down a rabbit hole about Ernest Shackleton, the leader of a failed expedition to cross the continent of Antarctica.
The Endurance was sunk on November 21, 1915, when it was crushed by Antarctic pack ice. The expedition leader, Ernest Shackleton, has become almost synonymous with leadership. Numerous books have been written about his tremendous leadership, which is credited with the crew's survival after being stranded in Antarctica for nearly two years.
What is rarely mentioned, however, are the decisions that led to the stranding and eventual destruction of Endurance. Both the crew and the sled dogs were inexperienced. When the ship arrived in South Georgia, local sailors warned that pack ice was forming early in the Weddell Sea and urged Shakleton to delay his departure, but he pressed on. When the ship became trapped in the ice, the flawed design of the ship became apparent. Vessels designed to sail into pack ice have rounded hulls, which allow them to be pushed up by the ice instead of crushed. Endurance was crushed.
When crisis almost inevitably struck, Shackleton, by all accounts, was an inspiring leader, and every one of the crew was rescued. (He did, however, shoot the ship's cat, Mrs. Chippy, for which the ship's carpenter never forgave him.) So, however well he handled the loss of the ship, his actions led to the situation in the first place.
Martin Gutmann, historianand author of The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership, uses Skackleton as the prime example of "celebrating the wrong leader," comparing him to the less-revered but far more accomplished explorer Roald Amundsen.
Don't celebrate the guy who sets fire to your house and then puts out the fire. Celebrate the guy who updates your electric and charges your fire extinguishers.
Also, while you can argue that Shackleton was right to save food for the human crew, he also ordered sailors to save film footage instead of food, so his priorities are flexible.
Note: The LEGO Endurance is a really lovely set. You can read an exhaustive review, complete with a history of the expedition here.
Previously: Antarctic explorer Shackleton's ship Endurance found: "the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen"
