Shackleton Leadership Style and its Relevance in Contemporary Business Organizations

This report discusses the Shackleton leadership style and its relevance in contemporary business organizations. It evaluates the challenges faced by Unilever and suggests adopting Shackleton's leadership style to improve their performance. The report emphasizes the importance of leadership qualities in an individual to carry out the operations of a company.

Individual Case Study
Analysis

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
References:.......................................................................................................................................7
INTRODUCTION
There are various challenges faced by the management in the present scenario, such as change in
technological advancements , various market trends, preferences of the consumers, needs of the

clients, economic conditions, etc. All these elements affects the business activities such as sales
and profitability of the business organization. The business environment is changing with a great
pace and the total elimination of the risk factors is not possible. Only anticipation of risks and
adopting various appropriate methods can reduce the probability of the negative impact on the
business. In terms of achieving the desired goal of the business, the organization is required to
undertake the Shackleton style of leadership. It also helps in enhancing the performance of the
business enterprise(Anttila and Jussila, 2021).
This report will discuss about the Shackleton leadership style along with the important lessons
which could be learned from the article in relation of the contemporary business organization in
crises. It further evaluates the organization situation that is relatable to the leadership and provide
the suggestions in order to improve the performance and increasing the worth.
MAIN BODY
According to the article which is being stated in the report, the Shackleton style of leadership is
one of the most suitable style in which a leader learns how to manage the team in an effective
manner so that the business organization can yield more profits. It also helps in generating
positivity and a sense of encouragement among the employees which ensures coordination and
cooperation between the members of the team in order to perform the various tasks. It could be
observed from the article how efficiently Shackleton has developed the leadership qualities by
adopting a particular style and made their team work with skill fullness and motivation. It also
helped in developing the interest of the employees to perform a specific work. Shackleton was
also known for the contribution that is made by him by becoming a guarded leader and a great
adventurer who lead the team to cross Antarctica in order to accomplish the goal of the team of
exploring Antarctica. Shackleton has created history by becoming the first to cross Antarctica by
leading the team. It requires a lot of courage to take this kind of step (Daniel, Henley and Anwar,
2019). It could only done by imbibing certain leadership qualities in oneself. A good leader is
one who posses the sense of sincerity and accountability along with the consistency of mind in
order to deal with different obstructions that will going to come in their way while achieving the
desired goal. A team leader in terms of making the team to work for accomplishing some
mission, must provide with all the necessary resources and instruments that are important to
reach to the coveted aim or target. First of all, the efforts are required to be shown by the team

leader. A team leader must be creative, adoptive, adjustable, supple and plausible to make its
team work accordingly. On the other hand, Shackleton also believes that while performing any
sort of task, the team must not experience any sort of pressure or load which may result in lost of
their interest from the work (Gooberman and Hauptmeier, 2022). They must not be anxious to
perform a specific task. Team leader should not force the employees to do the challenging tasks
without any assistance. They carry a belief that by choosing suitable and new techniques,
policies, rules, a team leader can boost the energy of the employees in order to make certain
improvements in their approach towards the assigned tasks. Shackleton believes in team work,
which means that a team should work in a peaceful environment. The team leader should interact
with the employees and provide every possible support to them in order to maintain a healthy
working culture in the organization. Every member of the team must be treated as an asset and
the team leader must realize the worth of the employees. A leader must be clear with the target
and the structure through which the team is going to achieve the outcome. Each and every
individual in the team should be acknowledged with their respective field work so that there
must be no confusion between the members of the team. This would help in avoiding any sort of
disputes among the employees(Uyar, 2019). The team leader should invite the opinions or ideas
from the team before starting any tasks. They must also involve the members in the decision
making process in order to ensure their participation in the activities of the group. According to
Shackleton, the team leader must have an idea about the strong and weak areas of the employees
so that the weak areas must get improved to enhance the productivity of the team. The team
members should clear their doubts regarding the tasks with the team leader in terms of obviating
any kind of discrepancies.
The productivity of the company could be affected by the changes done in the contemporary
management, like, change in technology, high employee ratio, poor team coordination, workload
to perform a task, incompetent support, low level of performance, disputes between the team
members, lack of proper communication, etc.
In order to understand the concept of contemporary management challenges, an organization
named Unilever is being selected which is a well known Brand which provides basic consumer
products. It was formed in the year 1929. the founders of the company are Samuel Van Den
Bergh, Antonius Johannes Jurgens and George Schich. The company is facing many issues in the
management of the business, such as, lack of proper training, poor organizational structure, no

encouragement to the employees, inappropriate leadership style. All these factors obstructing the
performance of the company in terms of quality, sales, supply, availability of the products in the
market, etc. The top management has adopted the dominating culture in the business
organisation where they use to take all the necessary decisions without including the
employees(Vasileva and Datta, 2021). They use to design the tasks in such a manner that creates
unnecessary pressure over the employees. Basically, the new employees of the organization are
getting similar amount of work which is assigned to the experienced staff of the organization.
Then they are expecting from the new joiners that they should perform their respective jobs
efficiently. The leaders are not providing a clear roadmap to the team members which creates a
lot of confusion among them. The new joiners are not provided with any kind of training or
knowledge before starting any project. The team leaders are not ready to communicate with the
employees which results in lot of misunderstandings between the team leaders and the
employees. Due to this, the company paid for the same as no one wants to continue in that
company and all the existing employees have started thinking of leaving the organization
because of such toxicity in the environment of the company(Jameel and Ahmad, 2020).
It is being suggested to the administration of the Unilever company that they are required to
amend the organizational structure and the leadership style of the company to eliminate the
challenges that are responsible in diminution of the productivity of the company. They must
utilize the leadership style of Shackleton in order to manage the employees effectively by
working on their capabilities in order to achieve the desired aim of the company. The employees
must be allowed to participate in the process of decision making by providing their opinions and
views on the particular matter. The new employees should be trained before assigning any task.
The team leaders must interact with the members of their respective teams in order to reduce the
possibility of any kind of conflicts between the team members. This will help in providing a
clarity to the team members in terms of any tasks(Abdullahi, Anarfo and Anyigba, 2020).
CONCLUSION
The conclusion drawn from the above report is that the business environment includes certain
external factors that affects the functions of a business organization. In order to mitigate the risk
of adverse impact of these elements on the business activities of an organization, Shackleton
leadership style is being suggested to the Unilever company which has elaborated the importance

of leadership qualities in a individual so as to carry the operations of the company. An individual
must posses the quality of a good leader who can handle the team members with efficiency and
effectiveness.
References:
Anttila, J. and Jussila, K., 2021. ISO 9004-A stimulating quality management standard for the
creative leaders of contemporary sustainable organizations. Production engineering
archives, 27(2), pp.148-155.
Daniel, E., Henley, A. and Anwar, M.N., 2019. Contemporary ethnic minority entrepreneurship
in the UK: A quantitative exploration of break out and entrepreneurial
quality. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.
Gooberman, L. and Hauptmeier, M. eds., 2022. Contemporary Employers’ Organizations:
Adaptation and Resilience. Routledge.
Uyar, S. ed., 2019. Contemporary approaches in businesses. IJOPEC PUBLICATION.
Vasileva, N.A. and Datta, P., 2021. The impact of leadership style on employee motivation in
the automotive industry: A British perspective. Journal of Business and Retail
Management Research, 16(01).
Jameel, A.S. and Ahmad, A.R., 2020. The mediating role of job satisfaction between leadership
style and performance of academic staff. International Journal of Psychosocial
Rehabilitation, 24(04), pp.2399-2414.
Abdullahi, A.Z., Anarfo, E.B. and Anyigba, H., 2020. The impact of leadership style on
organizational citizenship behavior: does leaders' emotional intelligence play a
moderating role?. Journal of Management Development.