Illustration by David Plunkert

Illustration by David Plunkert

Edited by Dan Morrell

You wrote recently that the story of British explorer Ernest Shackleton, who led an expedition to Antarctica in 1914, is highly relevant for leaders during this pandemic era. What makes it so germane?

Well, first of all, Shackleton realized that the crisis he faced was, at its essence, one of life and death. We need to start with that realization today during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shackleton understood that the mission was to get everyone home alive. And we would say the same thing about COVID: The goal is to keep as many people as possible alive and healthy, and reduce the number of deaths and hospitalizations.

Second lesson from Shackleton: you never vary from that mission, because so much else depends on achieving it. For example, wrestling COVID-19 to the ground is the same mission as saving the economy. The way you save the economy and bring it back is to get the virus under control, right now.

The third thing Shackleton teaches us: you can swear unchangeable, unassailable intransigence to the mission, but how you get it done is a much more open question. The explorer would try anything, play any card, to save his men. Right now, we don’t see anything like that kind of imagination and thoughtful improvisation, rapid-fire experimentation, and pivoting from many of our national and state leaders. This is a huge failure because these actions are essential to effective crisis leadership.

Fourth, Shackleton made his men believe that they could do it, that they could all get back to safety alive. How did he do this, create such self-belief in his team and thus make them part of the solution? Partly by his showing up every day in service to the mission. Partly by feeding and watering his people. And partly by constantly imbuing them with the idea that, well, of course we're going home. For example, the morning after the ship sank in November 1915—when it went through the ice and disappeared completely in 12 hours—he made them tea and hot milk, asked them to gather round him in a circle and said, "Well, lads, ship and stores are gone. Now we’ll go home."

 Photo by Steven Richard

“The decisions you make in a life-and-death crisis have a new, lasting importance. You can choose to ignore that, but you do so at your own peril.”
—Nancy Koehn

The “of-course-we’re-going-to-do-this” belief proved incredibly important, particularly in moments when hope frayed, pessimism sunk in, and dissention threatened. Shackleton always understood that instilling credible hope in his followers was one of his most powerful weapons for accomplishing his mission.

Many years later, the BBC went back and interviewed the remaining crew members of the Endurance expedition. The reporters asked each of these men, “How'd you do this? How’d you survive this extraordinary ordeal, this life-or-death crisis, for almost two years?” And each of them said, “The boss,” which was their nickname for Shackleton, “made us believe we could do it.”

What are three pieces of advice you might give to those who are focused on leading companies through an economic recovery?

First, be thoughtful about how you treat all your stakeholders, because the actions of those in power are being watched and noticed with new care and new breadth. The decisions you make in a life-and-death crisis have a new, lasting importance. You can choose to ignore that, but you do so at your own peril. We are never going back to what we remember as business as usual. Why not? Because COVID is a seismic event—much more akin to a world war than a natural disaster. As such, the pandemic is remaking our world every day. So, it makes much more sense to talk about the post-COVID world than returning to normal. In this environment, how you discharge your responsibilities to a wide range of stakeholders is a much more important criterion for your success than it was before COVID.

Second, be as creative and serious about thoughtful experimentation as you possibly can, because the organizations that improve in crisis are those that are willing to navigate point to point, pivot when they need to, experiment thoughtfully on a regular basis, and learn very quickly from mistakes.

Third, you’re going to need very serious, courageous leaders with worthy missions, and if you don’t have them, you need to change out your people. This crisis calls for leaders who are able to rise above the narrow focus on meeting financial metrics. There are much larger capabilities needed now: communication capabilities, ethical and social commitments, the ability to see the large, interdependent picture and to steer an organization with this in mind, and an understanding of the extraordinarily high stakes of this moment. Leaders today also need a sense of the broad footprint of business and a sense that this is a defining moment—the most important event of the past 70 years—and that the most critical resource we have to make our economy, society, and policy stronger and more honorable is courageous leadership—men and women with a worthy mission that’s a lot bigger than what our earnings per share were last quarter.

You just said that this is the most important event of the last 70 years. How might this time be remembered in the future?

I think this is pretty akin to World War II. We’re not fighting the “Triple Axis.” But we are fighting a global enemy, and to think that we’re going to go back to the new normal anytime soon is to just ignore history. COVID-19 is reconfiguring huge aspects of our collective and individual lives every day. And it’s giving birth to both enormous opportunities, like the campaign for justice and equality, as well as great, great challenges. And underlying it all is the matter of life: Who will die, and who will live?

I actually lost a friend very early on to COVID, during the first week we locked down. He was my closest friend, and he died, and there was nothing wrong with him before he became ill. So I know something of the suffering that this ruthless viral enemy can inflict.

How can we build something good out of the loss, vulnerability, chaos, and fear? The sooner that we can get a little sense of that, the more we can feel empowered to realize that each of us has a role to play, and that organizations have big parts to play. That can be positive. It will be difficult and it will involve lots of complicated trade-offs and wrenching decisions, but nonetheless, we need a lot more than hunkering down and hoping we get through.

Nancy Koehn is the James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration and author, most recently, of Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times

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