Lakhasly

shackleton was a leader who was made not born and he was made in very large part by two previous expeditions that he had made to antarctica under two different sets of circumstances the first was at the early turn of the century the 19th into the 20th century he under the command of robert falcon scott a well-known british naval commander he and several other men traveled to the antarctic continent in an attempt to be the first team of men to discover the south pole that voyage taught shackleton a lot about what weak leadership looked like scott was weak he was indecisive he was insecure he wanted his men to like him more than he wanted to achieve his mission which included very importantly the safety of his men so shackleton learned a lot about what great leadership was not reminding all of us that we can learn from other individuals as we make ourselves into good leaders partly by negative example the second voyage that very much affected the making of ernest shackleton was a voyage that he himself captained it was an amazing journey and shackleton and his small team got close to the pole the closest that any group had ever gotten 97 miles north when shackleton realized that his men were too weak to complete the trip to the south pole and get back safely and so he turned away a wrenching decision and as he said later to his wife better alive donkey than the dead lion so there he learned the critical importance of looking out for the safety of his men and of looking ahead from what would it cost him and his men even though they'd get to the south pole if they never got back shackleton's most famous expedition and the one we're going to concentrate on now is the endurance expedition which began in august 1914 when the team left london for the antarctic continent on their way to the antarctic continent shackled and his men sail into an island for their last outpost it's called south georgia deep in the south atlantic the whalers and sailors there warn him that the icebergs are unusually far north this year and that if he and his men sail south they may face danger and hazards as a result of a sea that is literally ridden with ice flows shackleton makes the decision almost immediately to sail on despite the risk by january 1915 they can see the antarctic coast it's about 80 miles away and then ice forms around the ship big burrs form around the ship and lock together like a vice and the endurance and its 28 inhabitants is absolutely stuck [Music] and suddenly everything is very different and the mission walk across the antarctic continent is now up for grabs and last but not least it's summer the days are long and the men who are supposed to be setting up base camp and getting ready for this astounding expedition are confronted with endless time and all that that might mean it's interesting to note that he focused a huge amount of his attention as the leader on affecting the engagement the outlook and the cohesion of his team he immediately set about putting together a whole host of activities and in some cases precedence for his men to follow in now these very change circumstances in which it looked like the mission of the expedition was now called into question or maybe even over first he ordered that every man come together for an hour after dinner in the state room to socialize talk play games compare notes engage in theatricals they were going to come together and they were going to enjoy each other's company and they were not going to be off alone in their bugs thinking about how miserable their situation was one day he decided to have a waltzing contest on the ice and he was the leadoff dancer and there was a wonderful afternoon of raiding the waltzing skills of his men he had dog races across the ice he was constantly thinking about how to keep his men engaged focused on the positive and working together some of this some of this was an attempt right that wouldn't have been lost on his men