Leadership

Shackleton expressed great amounts of leadership and served as a role model throughout his expedition. He knew that each day, his presence had a huge impact on the men’s mind sets. He managed his own emotional intelligence to keep his own courage and confidence high. When these flagged, he never let his men know. Shackleton kept his men’s focus on the future. The ship was gone; previous plans were irrelevant. Now his goal was to bring the team home safely, and he improvised, adapted and used every resource at hand to achieve it. When a few men expressed skepticism about his plans, he acted quickly to contain their opposition and negativity by trying to win them over and keeping close watch on them. He assigned several potential troublemakers to his own tent on the ice, proving the value of the saying, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Leadership is doing the right things. Great leaders possess social intelligence, a zest for change, and above all, vision that allows them to set their sights on the things that truly merit attention.