What Can Ernest Shackleton Teach Us About Academic Leadership?
One hundred years ago today, one of the most intrepid explorers of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration passed away, on his way to his final expedition of the White Continent: Ernest Shackleton. He is best known for two things: (1) While he never actually made it to the South Pole (he got close in 1909; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod_Expedition), he never lost a member of his expedition, and (2) his incredible and perilous boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia, to seek rescue for his crew stranded on the former (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition). He was the epitome of the empathic, inspiring, optimistic leader, and his principles have been expounded upon to inform leadership in many fields. In this post, I focus on what they can teach us about academic leadership.
On Leadership: I have heard it said that “the difference between managers and leaders is that managers do things right while leaders do the right things.” But what do we actually mean by “doing the right things?” How would Shackleton answer this question? I believe his approach would identify the virtues that allow him to identify the right things to do.
To illustrate, consider the following quotes attributed to the man:
“Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.” Effort is important, but progress matters.
“Need to put the footstep of courage into the stirrup of patience.” It takes courage to do difficult things, but courage without patience can lead to disaster.
“The quality I look for most is optimism: especially in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage.” Essential to success is a belief that no matter what may be encountered on the way, the final goal is worthy and remains achievable.
Let me attempt to distill Shackleton’s leadership principles into four key underlying virtues: Idealism, Optimism, Patience, and Courage. Let’s discuss each of these in turn.
Idealism: You have a worthy vision of what of you want to achieve, and you use your principles to guide your path to get there. Your decisions are informed by an internal moral compass, but at its heart is your vision informed by your principles. “What good shall I do today?”
Those who you lead will respect you if you clarify what your principles are and if you stick to them. When I was Vice Chancellor for Research at Berkeley, one of the first things I did was to craft a vision statement, stating what I aspired to achieve and my path for getting my institution there.
I printed my vision statement on some cards, and handed it out to everyone who would take one. During my yearly performance reviews, I tied my assessment by my Chancellor and Provost to my progress on achieving this vision. Vision is important, but progress matters.
No leader can achieve anything on their own. It takes a village. A key is supporting your people, praising them, and giving them credit for their achievements. But also giving them constructive feedback. One of my core principles is to understand that people make mistakes, and they should always be given a chance to learn from them. A leader who responds to mistakes with “off with their head!” is no leader in my book.
Another is as a leader to take on the hard things; these are neither to be avoided or delegated. As a leader, you are responsible for making decisions, particularly the difficult ones. As British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery said:
“The matter of decision is vital. The modern tendency is to avoid taking decisions, and to procrastinate in the hope that things will come out all right in the wash.”
And a final principle is to speak truth to power. I have always admired that military phrase “Permission to speak freely?”, uttered whenever a junior is about to countermand a senior officer. I have spoken my mind to my peers on the Chancellor’s cabinet, to the Chancellor and the Provost (my nominal bosses), and to the University of California President and Provost. I am sure that they did not always like what I had to say, but I do think (and hope) that they realized they needed to hear it.
Idealism is often contrasted with realism. Namely, do whatever is necessary to get things done (also known as “the end justifies the means”).
The claim is that an idealist can’t get anything done; it takes a pragmatist to achieve. I disagree, and I back this up with quote from Colin Wright:
“Idealism is only naïve when it lacks action, determination, and imagination.”
At the end of the day, it is about getting things done.
Without a vision, what is a leader trying to achieve? A manager does things right; a leader does the right things. Vision is key. This is not to say that some compromises may be necessary to realize the vision. But expediency in decision making only leads to disappointment among those who you lead. Shackleton aborted his effort to reach the South Pole, because keeping is team alive was more important than achieving that particular goal. Every good leader should ask themselves, when making a decision, did you stick to your principles? Did you do some good? Did you do the right thing?
Optimism: To me optimism means imaging the world you want to achieve as obtainable, as it could and should be, and not to be dissuaded from achieving it because of the inevitable — and sometimes serious — obstacles that you will encounter on the way. It is one thing to have a vision; it is another to stick to it despite setbacks and difficulties. To borrow from Ted Lasso’s training technique, it is important to inspire those you lead that your vision can be obtained:
This reminds of one of my favorite jokes:
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel.
An optimist sees light at the end of the tunnel.
A realist sees a freight train.
The train driver see three idiots standing on the tracks.
In many ways, optimism is the most essential virtue in achieving difficult things. As Winston Churchill said:
“What is the greatest quality in a leader? Mettle, that is, a person’s ability to cope well with difficulties or to face a demanding situation in a spirited and resilient way.”
This is a virtue in which Shackleton personally excelled. To keep his crew together in the face of losing their ship to the Antarctic ice, to being at the end of the Earth with no way of calling for help, to sail away from those he promised to return to across hundreds of miles of open ocean in a small boat, took enormous reserves of optimism.
Most academic leaders are never faced with such life or death decisions, yet the obstacles put up by the various constituencies of the University, particularly to change for any reason, can be no less formidable. Without optimism that change can be achieved, an academic leader will accomplish nothing.
Patience: If your vision is ambitious, if its achievement will be difficult, if you will need to surmount many obstacles in reaching your goal, then you had better be patient. Doing hard, ambitious things takes time and effort. And here is where compromise comes in:
“Patience is the settled reality that we are not in control.”
For Shackleton, he understood that he could not control the physical environment of Antartica. But it is also true about the political and social environment of the University.
Universities are surprisingly conservative organizations, institutionally constituted to resist virtually any change. Without patience, change cannot be achieved. And even with it, change will be difficult.
Courage: This is the virtue that means pushing through to achieve your vision, even in the face of what appears to be insurmountable. Again, to quote Winston Churchill:
“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”
To cross that open ocean to affect the rescue of his crew, Shackleton exhibited enormous reserves of courage. I am afraid that this is the one virtue sorely lacking among most Academic leaders. Better to back down in the face of pressure than to press on to achieving the vision that will advance the institution.
Summary: I have attempted to summarize Shackleton’s leadership virtues as Idealism, Optimism, Patience, and Courage. To succeed in virtually any human endeavor, you need a solid reserve of each of these. Shackleton excelled in his principled approach to leadership (“preserve lives first”) backed up by optimism (“we will be rescued”), patience (lost for two years), and courage (to cross the ocean in small open boat to save his crew). Even though it isn’t about life or death, leadership in academia requires the same virtues to affect change within the context of a deeply conservative institution. Many academic leaders are strong on vision, optimism, and even patience; the most infrequently exhibited virtue is courage — and the willingness to do the right thing as opposed to the political expedient thing.
