Learning Out Loud: What Ernest Shackleton Taught Me About Leadership

 

Do you have a fictive mentor?

I do.

A fictive mentor is someone who has never been a personal part of your life, yet they have shaped the way you think, lead, or persevere. They may be a historical figure, an author, a scientist, an athlete, or even a fictional character. You’ve never met them, but somehow their story continues to mentor you from afar.

I have always believed that mentoring is one of the greatest gifts we can give and receive. Growth rarely happens in isolation. Whether you are investing in someone else’s journey or learning from someone more experienced, mentoring creates opportunities for reflection, accountability, encouragement, and transformation. In many ways both the mentor and mentee grow together.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to develop a mentoring program called Between Us©. It was a project that was incredibly meaningful to me because I believe leadership is not something people are simply born with. It can be cultivated with intention, guidance, and practice.

Applicants joined the program and worked through a curriculum that I designed around the four foundational leadership principles:

·        Lead yourself

·        Lead others

·        Lead a community

·        Lead an organization

These four pillars were supported by a mission statement and a set of shared values that challenged participants to grow both personally and professionally. I poured my heart int building the program because I genuinely believed it could make a difference.

Like many worthwhile ideas, however, the program faced obstacles. Competing priorities, limited time, and organizational barriers often made it difficult to sustain the momentum I had envisioned. Looking back, I don’t see those challenges as failures. Instead, they taught me that while structured mentoring programs have tremendous value, meaningful mentorship often happens in much simpler ways.

Sometimes all it takes is one conversation.

One person who believes in you.

One story that reminds you to keep going.

Mentors do not always have to be sitting across the table from us. Sometimes they speak through the pages of a book, the legacy they left behind, or the example they set decades or even centuries ago.

One of my greatest fictive mentors is Ernest Shackleton.  

I first learned about Shackleton during a leadership development program that I completed in 2017, and his story has stayed with me ever since.

Shackleton was an Antarctic explorer whose 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition is remembered not because he achieved his original goal, but because he failed to reach it. His ship. Endurance, became trapped and eventually crushed by ice, leaving his crew stranded in one of the harshest environments on Earth.  

By every traditional measure, the expedition was unsuccessful.

Yet Shackleton accomplished something far greater.

Every single member of his crew survived.

For more than ten months, Shackleton demonstrated extraordinary leadership under unimaginable circumstances. When uncertainty surrounded them, he remained calm. When hope faded, he created it. When morale declined, he protected it. He consistently placed the well-being of his people ahead of his own ambitions.

His leadership wasn’t rooted in authority. It was rooted in character.

As I read Endurance, I found myself drawn not to his accomplishments, but to the qualities he displayed in moments of crisis: courage, authenticity, resilience, accountability, trust, teamwork, humility, and unwavering commitment to those he led.

Those qualities continue to influence how I approach leadership today.

Whenever I face difficult decisions, organizational challenges, or uncertain seasons, I often ask myself, What would Shackleton do?

That is the remarkable thing about fictive mentors. They continue teaching us long after they are gone.

So, I’ll leave you with this question:

Who are your fictive mentors?

Whose story has quietly shaped the leader, professional, parent, friend, or person you’ve become?

Sometimes the people who change our lives are the ones we never had the privilege to meet.