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President's Column
Windy, cold, desolate, frequent sleet, ice, and snowstorms-South Georgia is a miserable place in winter. Of course, I don't mean the Georgia I call home, where Georgia Southern University nestles snugly in Statesboro, an hour's drive from Savannah and the Atlantic Ocean, and where, as I write this in December, the temperature has reached 76 degrees. The South Georgia that boasts the hellish winter is South Georgia Island, a remote British territory lying near the Antarctic Circle, at latitude 54° south. What little I know about it comes from its role in the story of Sir Ernest Shackle ton's Endurance expedition of 1914-16. As recounted in several books, including Roland Huntford's Shackleton, this incredible adventure came to a successful conclusion due to Shackelton's extraordinary leadership.1 Whenever I am asked what books about leadership I might recommend, I skip over the usual catalog of biographies, autobiographies, and profiles of football coaches and captains of industry. The best books on leadership that I know, from the standpoint of providing both worthy models and gripping entertainment, recount the early twentieth-century Antarctic exploits of Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Robert Falcon Scott.
Shackleton and his team of twenty-seven men planned to be the first expedition to cross the Antarctic, but before they could even set up their base camp on the continent, their ship was trapped in pack ice. They hoped to ride out the winter and continue their journey when the ship could break free during the warmer spring and summer seasons. Instead, the ice crushed and sank their...