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Shackleton's Way, Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell is perhaps my favorite book on leadership. Read the book first then rent the movie.

jhack's picture

...buy the action figures!

This forum is for thoughtful discussions of business books, not for shilling them.

John

HMac's picture

One drawback about not being able to see how many posts someone's made, or how long they've been a member: it's harder to spot the spammers (Member since: today; Number of Posts:1)

-Hugh

tradesylver's picture

My only question to either of you gentlemen is did you read the book before posting your comments? Maybe if you had read the book we could have had a thoughtful discussion on what made Shackleton's leadership qualities worthy of several publications and documentaries.

Frankly, it is disappointing to find this kind of attitude amoung some of the membership of this website. To answer your question Hugh, yes I am new to this website.

Bob

jhack's picture

Bob,

I'm sorry. I jumped to a conclusion. No, I've not read the book.

What about the book made you so enthusiastic?

John

Mark's picture
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Gentlemen.

John, you jumped to a conclusion. Okay, apology accepted.

Bob - are you here to advert the book, or are you here to join us for the whole scope of management life? Your second omment is unwisely vague, it seems to me.

All - full disclosure - I read it and thought it a good story, but not great leadership lessons. I generally find single instance inductive reasoning invalid... But it is a lovely story, and courage and humility are always not just good, but right.

Mark

tradesylver's picture

John, no problem handshakes around. Thanks...

Mark, I was introduce to Shackleton throught the Herman Wells leadership class at Indiana University . It was one of the leadership lessons that the prof thought worthwhile to study. I found that this style of leadership squared with my ideals of leadership. I find the ideals expressed here align with my philosophy so much so I felt it was worthwhile to invest in a full membership.

Just short history, I too was military, Navy from 73 to 77 as an enlisted man and then again in the National Guard 94 to 98. In 95 I went to work for a rural electric cooperative. In 97 I decided I wanted to manage an electric co-op an went to school nights for 9 1/2 years to get my undergrad in business and then a master. My dream just came true and was hired by an electric co-op in Up-State New York. I've been here three weeks now and trying to get my family moved from Indiana.

I stumbled across this website by purchasing a Zune and searching through the podcasts I found your website. Liked it, been listening to your broadcasts for about two months now.

There are plenty of challenges here and your podcasts have been very beneficial in how I am approaching each of my direct reports. And so have many of the postings in the forums. So, I'm here to learn, and participate and share my experiences. What I have learned in these past three weeks is that no amount of schooling, reading books or even lower level management positions really prepared me for sitting in the corner office, it's different view from behind that desk. However, I'm sticking to your 90 day plan.

I'm off to New Orleans in a couple of hours for the NRECA's annual meeting and I have listened to your podcast twice on packing. One Redoxx Air Boss carry on bag with everything I need for four days.

I've rambled on long enough.

John, thanks...I look forward to sharing with you.

Bye for now,

Bob

tradesylver's picture

Must bounced the return key twice...sorry

Mark's picture
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Well said all!

Beat Navy!

Mark

Glenn Ross's picture

Long interested in Shackleton,I was intrigued by the original post in this thread. Not knowing whether it was truly a spammer, I reserved the book from our local library. Sitting in a concert hall prior to my son's concert the other night, I skimmed the book.

I give it 3 stars out of 5.

If you are new to management, or want to re-evaluate how you practice, and you enjoy business books that tell a story, you may find this book relevant. Especially if you enjoy reading history or biography.

Each of the leadership principles is illustrated by a story. You can either read the book like a novel, or speed read it since each principle is in bold print. Think of the book as a checklist hidden within a story.

In their recent podcast on project management M & M made the point about how important it is to select your team members. Although it doesn't appear in the book, I thought you would find the ad Shackleton placed in newspapers when recruiting for one of his polar expeditions amusing:
Men wanted for hazardous duty. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.

Hey, Mark, it was much better than The Knowing-Doing Gap:-)

I'll be listening....

Glenn

terrih's picture

I LOATHE business books that [attempt to] tell a story, so I probably won't get around to this one.