Real Leaders: Ernest Shackleton Leads a Harrowing Expedition

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1915, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship became trapped in ice, north of Antarctica. For the next two years, he kept his crew of 27 men alive on a drifting ice cap, then led them in their escape. How Shackleton did that has become one of the most famous leadership case studies. In the first episode of a four-part special series on leadership, HBR Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius and Harvard Business School professor and historian Nancy Koehn analyze Shackleton’s leadership during the struggle to survive. They discover lessons in building a team, learning from bad bosses, and cultivating empathy.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Kurt Nick is here from Ideacast. I want to tell you about the Big Take
0:05.1	podcast from Bloomberg News. Each weekday they bring you one important story
0:10.0	from their global newsroom like how AI will upend your life and why China's
0:15.4	targeting the US dollar. Check out the big take from Bloomberg wherever you listen. Welcome to the HPR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Adi Ignatius.
0:35.0	This is Real Leaders, a special series that examines the lives of some of the world's most compelling and effective
0:43.7	leaders past and present and offers lessons to all of us today.
0:50.4	Wanted, men for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness,
0:58.1	constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition recognition in case of success.
1:04.6	Legend has it that that's the job ad Ernie Shackleton used to recruit the crew for his
1:09.3	expedition to Antarctica in 1914.
1:13.0	If you know this story, you know that Shackleton and his crew never set foot on that
1:17.0	continent.
1:18.0	Instead, their ship got trapped in ice.
1:20.9	But it's what happened when their original mission failed that has made
1:23.8	Shackleton's remarkable story of survival, one of the most famous case studies in
1:28.2	leadership history. I'm Audie Ignatius, editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, and I'm joined by historian and Harvard
1:36.2	Business School Professor Nancy Kane.
1:39.0	Nancy's case study about Ernie Shackleton is a classic, and her book,
1:42.8	Forge in Crisis, is a great account of Schakeleton's story.
1:46.4	Nancy, welcome.
1:47.4	Thank you, Audie, it's a pleasure to be here.
1:51.1	We're starting a series with Ernes Schakeleton, one of the great explorers in the age of polar exploration in the early 20th century.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.