Leading in Uncertain Times: Lessons from the Polar Explorers
By Edward Sullivan and John Baird
In recent weeks, many of our coaching clients have sought guidance about charting the best course forward in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting market turbulence. As conferences are cancelled and international travel is curbed, many leaders are asking “How do I effectively lead and make decisions in times like this?”
Just over a hundred years ago, another leader sailed directly into uncertainty. Ernest Shackleton, the famed and ill-fated polar explorer, recruited sailors with an ad that promised “low wages, bitter cold and long hours of complete darkness.” Entire volumes and a Harvard Business School case have been written about him.
Why?
Because more than just about any other leader in modern times, Shackleton demonstrated an incredible ability to lead effectively in the face of mounting uncertainty and adversity. Some of the greatest leaders in our history have been defined by the way they managed through adversity. Martin Luther King and his leadership during the Civil Rights movement left a lasting legacy of how to lead change through adversity.
While Shackleton’s story does not offer a simple recipe for every leader to follow, there are some insights we’ve gleaned from his experience that may be useful for you as you sail into the unknown. In our coaching work at Velocity, we help leaders look at adversity as an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership.
1) An Officer Never Runs
One of the first things a new recruit learns in the Marine Officer Candidate School is that “An Officer Never Runs.” This is an elegant way of saying that the Leader sets the emotional tone for her troops. If the Leader panics, the troops will panic; if the Leader remains calm, the troops are more likely to remain calm.
While infamous for his overly honest recruitment ads, Shackleton was just as well known for his ability to remain positive and calm in the face of dire conditions.
This is required not just for hedging against downside emotional outcomes (i.e. avoiding paranoia or panic), but also for creating positive emotional environments. Everything we know about Emotional Contagion research is that humans take emotional cues from each other. Those cues are 5-10x more powerful coming from the perceived leader or authority.
As you communicate with your team in the coming weeks and months, being mindful of your tone and underlying emotions is of utmost importance. We say “underlying emotions” because it’s not good enough to try to feign serenity and calm. You must FEEL serenity and calm, even though you are facing dire uncertainty.
While the words you say are important, the nonverbal cues tell the real story. Research says that 55% of our message comes from our body language (facial expressions, eye contact and body movement), while 38% comes from tone of voice. ONLY 7% of our message is conveyed by the words we use.
In Shackleton’s Captain’s log, he often expressed concern, but at no point did he let fear overtake him. If you find yourself getting uncontrollably anxious or paranoid (as some CEOs are starting to feel right now), perhaps it’s time to step back and gain some perspective.
If you can’t shake it through breathing, journaling, or mindfulness, and you aren’t able to abate your anxiety, finding another messenger or partner on the Exec Team would be advisable.
2) Stay Focused on the Big Picture (and the Small Tasks)
As ice slowly surrounded the Endurance, Shackleton’s 144 ft. sailing ship, his focus shifted from exploration and glory to survival for himself and his crew. And just as exploration and glory would be a team effort, fighting for their survival would have to be a team effort, as well.
In turbulent and uncertain times, it is more important than ever for your team to have a goal to rally around. Your core mission and purpose – your WHY – are rarely more important than when you are dealing with uncertainty. As a leader, reflect on your own personal WHY. Why is this challenge or problem to solve important to you and your mission? Tell your story and connect your own personal WHY to the message.
Reminding your team about your mission and its importance keeps them focused on something larger than themselves. It also reminds them of the role they play in carrying out that mission.
Like the crew of a sailboat, every member of your team has a vital role to play in carrying out your mission. Keeping them focused on the task at hand, one that contributes to the larger goal keeps them focused on what they can control about the future, as opposed to what they can’t.
Spend time with your Executive Team to align around a common mission-focused message and agree upon a regular cadence for delivering that message. What gets repeated gets remembered. So, the more consistent and reliably “on message” you are (within reason and with authenticity and heart), the more likely your mission-focused reminders will get through to the team.
The Rule of 7 principle from research suggests that a message may need to be repeated at least 7 times before it is believed and truly heard. Using multiple channels (say it, write it, see it visually, text it etc.) need to be considered.
Shackleton and his crew couldn’t change the fact that the polar ice had consumed their ship. They could not change the fact that they had limited provisions. Nor that prospects of being rescued were miniscule.
But they could each focus on their daily duties and make incremental progress toward their ultimate goal: making it home alive.
3) Be the Rock that a Sea of Emotion Can Crash Upon
Uncertainty creates fear. And fear engenders all sorts of follow-on emotions including anger, terror, numbness, irritability, helplessness and so on. As you lean into the leadership moments that uncertain times require of you, it is important that you are ready to hold space for a wide range of emotions that will come up for your team.
Shackleton held space for a range of emotions by being honest from the get-go. “Low wages, bitter cold and complete darkness,” as his recruitment poster read. It doesn’t get more honest than that.
By being honest about the state of affairs, we give people permission to feel whatever it is they are feeling. Minimizing or downplaying how uncertain or scary things might be only creates more uncertainty and fear.
Are some people paranoid? Honor their fear.
Are others angry? Express genuine concern for their complaints.
Have some people shut down? Invite them into a safe space to feel what they are really feeling.
At the end of the day, your goal is to not just let people feel heard, but also to feel that whatever they are feeling is ok. Negative emotions begin to dissipate when we make it ok for people to feel and express these emotions. One organization is considering bringing in a medical professional to facilitate a discussion with employees about the coronavirus outbreak making sure that people’s feelings are heard.
What steps can you take to make sure your people feel heard?
4) Adapt the Work Environment to a New Reality
When the Endurance finally relented to the crushing pressure of the encroaching ice and was rendered completely uninhabitable, Shackleton and his crew set up encampments directly on the snow surrounding the ship. This was an entirely new working environment for the crew, and they needed to adapt how they cooked, slept, and protected themselves from the elements.
To better protect their staff, many of our clients are encouraging their employees to work from home. While many companies are “remote first” these days, teams that are used to the fast-paced office environment of an office can find it difficult to adapt to working from home.
Working from home is NOT the same as working in one central office, and leaders need to address this proactively.
What tools do your teams need to continue to collaborate? How will we adjust our productivity expectations? How do we maintain the cultural fabric we’ve spent so much time weaving together? Do we need to adjust our meeting regime so our teams are not simply switching from one video call to the next?
Assuming your teams will “figure it out” and adapt their working habits on their own has a low likelihood of success. Instead, you will probably have to adapt the work environment across the entire organization and establish new “ways of working” that fit with the new environment.
5) Communicate What You Know When You Know It
In times of uncertainty, secrecy can erode trust quickly. On the contrary, communicating what you know as soon as you know it can increase trust.
Stuck out of the ice, Shackleton had little certainty about anything, but he did know how much provisions they had left. In his briefings with his crew, he would regularly inventory their stores of food and cooking oil, and he would also be very honest about what he didn’t know – like if and when they would ever be rescued.
How could you be communicating better with your team about what you do and don’t know at this time? Are you shying away from sharing the bad news? Are you sugar-coating or pretending to have more certainty than you do?
Committing to transparency deepens trust on your team. Although we may remain uncertain about the future, we can at least be certain that we are getting the full story from our leaders in real time.
* * *
After the ice began to thaw in the spring of 1916, the crew made its way back to shore near Elephant Island off the Antarctic Coast. Shackleton then made an incredible 800-mile open ocean journey to the island of South Georgia where they hoped to find help. He set sail in a 22 ft lifeboat with five other crew members leaving 22 marooned on the Island.
Miraculously, Shackleton returned triumphantly four months later after two failed attempts and rescued the remainder of his crew. On his sail back to England, he wrote in his journal, “I have done it! Not a life lost, and we have been through Hell!”
What will you write in your journal when you are through this period of upheaval and uncertainty?