Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition is one of the clearest real-world demonstrations of crisis leadership ever documented. When his ship Endurance was crushed by pack ice in 1915, every strategic plan collapsed. Shackleton transformed instantly from an explorer with an objective to a crisis leader with one mission: get every man home alive. He succeeded—zero deaths—despite 18 months stranded on drifting ice and a near-suicidal open-boat journey across the world’s most dangerous seas.
