Leadership lessons
I have just finished a good summer read: Roland Huntford’s classical The Last Place on Earth, a biography of polar explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen and their race to the South Pole in 1911. Perfect for cooling off during a hot summer day! The book was first published in 1971 and has been criticized of late for its heavyhandedness in typecasting the protagonists as hero (Amundsen) and villain (Scott). While it is true that Huntford pursues his argument relentlessly, at the expense perhaps of a more nuanced approach, the book is well researched and the author provides ample evidence in the form of journal entries to substantiate his claims. Amundsen’s victory in reaching the South Pole first was the result of a very carefully planned and beautifully executed mission while Scott’s defeat and death (together with his companions) were the ultimate consequences of an ill-conceived mission and truly deficient leadership.
I’m generally sceptical to the genre “leadership biographies” - or even worse - “leadership autobiographies”. These kinds of books often fall into the fundamental attribution error. In attributing success to personality traits and moral virtues, such biographies underestimate the situational forces at play. For example, the success of any one business executive is often attributed to his/her charisma, savvy and judgement while a closer look often reveals that the outcomes can in fact be attributed to any number and combination of other factors such as market conditions, assets, organisational culture or just good timing. The same is also true of failure, of course. While it may it may be natural to look for a scapegoat at the top of the organisation, it is not at all sure that the major causes of failure lie just there. In sum, leadership narratives are incommensurable. They are generally not comparable and/or transposable to other settings. In the case of Huntford’s dual biography, however, the risk of committing the fundamental attribution error is minimised. Scott and Amundsen were both operating on a very level playing field. They both had the same time to prepare for the mission, roughly the same budget and started at the same time (actually Scott had some advantage on the last two points). While in the operating theatre they both faced the same terrain, weather conditions and aimed for exactly the same goal. In addition, they both lacked any knowledge of the other’s whereabouts. Because they shared the same critical success factors, one can truly say that their race to the South Pole represents a perfect leadership lab testing the effectiveness of their different philosophies and executive styles. So wherein lied their big differences that resulted in so different outcomes?
Today, leadership is a field of scientific investigation and all evidence suggests that the most effective type of leadership is transformational. By transformational leadership is meant the ability to influence followers’ mode of thinking - not just acting - and by empowering them to wield as much responsibility as possible in the execution of their duties. Circa one hundred years before the term transformational leadership became widely known and used, Roald Amundsen provides this textbook description.
“We have established a little republic on board Gjøa. After my own experience, I decided as far as possible to use a system of freedom onboard - let everybody have the feeling of being independent within his own sphere. In that way, there arises - amongst sensible people - a spontaneous and voluntary discipline, which is worth far more than compulsion. Every man thereby has the consciousness of being a human being…. The will to do work is many times greater and thereby the work itself. We were all working towards a common goal and gladly shared all work.”
Amundsen wrote those lines in 1904 on his way to the Northwest Passage . The same ethos would apply on board his new ship Fram as he sailed to the South Pole. But Amundsen’s trip through the Northwest Passage also taught him many valuable lessons about polar exploration; lessons he did not forget. During this trip he spent a lot of time with Eskimos who taught him and his men the basics of polar living: the art of building igloos, dog sledding but also the fundamentals of the polar diet/cooking, clothing and other survival skills. Back in Norway he prepared meticulously for his Antartic expedition by testing and, sometimes designing, his equipment, apportioning optimal food rations with wide margins of safety, and recruiting the most suitable candidates for the job in view of specific tasks. Learning did not stop there. Most notably Amundsen recognised early on that, besides his companions, his greatest asset on the trip were the dogs whose behaviour he studied closely. For instance, during the southbound voyage on board Fram he observed that some dogs fought repeatedly with each another while others enjoyed each other’s company. Accordingly he assigned the dogs to the different sleighs according to their social rapports. Such attention to key details proved invaluable during the course of the trip. Having arrived in Antarctica, he put his plan to action with adaptations but without improvisations. For example, he was forced to turn back to the ship after his impatient decision to start crossing the Great Ice Barrier too early in the season. But once he reset his expedition after this mistake, he executed his plan by placing well-marked and well-stocked depots at reasonable intervals with good margins of safety. In fact, on his way back to the coast after conquering the South Pole, he had to leave much of his food depots untouched.
Scott’s approach could not have been more different. Like Amundsen, Scott had also polar experience. In 1902-1904 he had commanded the ship Discovery during a scientific fact-finding expedition to Antartica. But unlike his rival, Scott was not keen about polar exploration but saw it as a way of furthering his career in the Royal Navy and, more generally, winning fame back home. His leadership style was authoritarian and he demanded obedience from his men according to the code of conduct of the Royal Navy; an ethos on which he relied completely. In his preparations he was not context-minded but saw this mission much like any other exploration which had to be planned according to general principles of logistics. For example, he did not adjust the diet enough to meet polar demands. Consequently most of his men suffered from scurvy (a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C). In addition, he opted for newly designed - and never mission tested - motor sleighs and ponies for the transport of material. Predictably, the motor sleighs broke down and could not be repaired on site. As for the ponies, they were, unlike dogs, totally unsuited for the polar environment and did not survive for long. Scott also brought along dogs on his expedition but not in sufficient quantity and furthermore he never really understood their use or behaviour. His team team had to man-haul the equipment which obviously took its toll. And once again, unlike Amundsen, Scott liked to improvise. In one of his last fateful decisions, Scott included an extra man on the last stretch to the Pole which further reduced food rations; rations which had not been planned with any margins of safety. Exhausted by having to man-haul their supplies and weakened by ill-suited and insufficient food rations, his men did not stand chance in Antartica’s hostile environment.
Beyond the differences in planning and execution, Huntford highlights the decisive importance of their very different mindsets. He writes: “Scott wanted to be a hero; Amundsen merely wanted to go to the Pole. Scott, with his instinct for self-dramatisation, was playing to the gallery; Amundsen thought of the job at hand, not of an audience.”
At the risk of being self-contradictory (see lesson 3), I formulate the following six leadership lessons implicit in the book:
Focus on the task at hand, not on future glories
Empower your staff to shoulder their own responsibilities
Learn from your own field observations rather than from others’ maps or analyses
Adapt your game plan to ruling conditions on the field but avoid improvisations
Don’t take unnecessary risks and give yourself wide margins of safety
Learn from your mistakes and don’t blame them on anybody or anything else