Summer Reading Test Question 4: In a 5-paragraph essay, compare and contrast concepts of leadership found in Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (Alfred Lansing) and the Star Trek novel Avenger (William Shatner).

Endurance and Avenger are two books I read this summer featuring Captains in positions of leadership. Kirk, Picard, and Ernest Shackleton are all legendary figures, although only Shackleton was real. Kirk and Picard are the fictional captains of starships in the Star Trek television and movie series (and books), while Shackleton was a real man who led a failed trip to Antarctica and then kept his crew alive while trapped in floating ice and then on an island for a total of over eighteen months. All three are leaders, but there methods are an interesting thing to compare and contrast.

Endurance is the story of how Shackleton's expedition to cross Antarctica, a feet that had never been done. His hopes were dashed and those of his crew when there ship became entrapped in heavy ice. For months they drifted, helpless, then there boat was crushed by the ice flows. Then they lived for months on the ice, until it broke up and they took to the live boats. After the crew was marooned on lonely Elephant Isle, Shackleton took off with five of his best sailors in one live raft on a 800-mile trip to get help. Incredibly, he made it, and everyone was saved. Shackleton's leadership is clearly responsible for keeping his crew alive. He is described as cautious and protective of his crew, for example he doesn't like them to go out on the edges of the ice flows because he's afraid they'll fall off. But in the two times when he has to "live dangerously" he does it (when he separates the boats and when they go sliding down that glacier).

In Avenger, the main character is James T. Kirk, who interestingly is also the character played by the author in the old television show. Also Jean-Luc Picard plays a role, the captain from The Next Generation. The two men are very different, for example, Picard is described as being cautious, a man who listens to and looks out for his crew before making a decision. Kirk is more like "shoot first, ask questions later" and feels like he belongs to an old age where people did things more dangerously. He thinks people depend too much on there starships and all there technology, and they should rely on themselves more.

Comparing the two books, it's almost like Shackleton combines some of the best traits of both Kirk and Picard. He is both cautious and uncautious depending on the situation. Also, he depends on the ship and is a good sailor, but he also pulls through after there ship is crushed in the ice and sunk. Interestingly, all these captains at some point lose there ships (although not necessarily in the books): Shackleton in the ice, Picard at Viridian III, and Kirk when he sets the auto-destruct because the Klingons have taken over. But all go on to battle even greater threats, and even without there ships, there leadership triumphs.

Endurance and Avenger show us different images of what is leadership, both similar and different. They tell us that leadership is a combination of caution and knowing when to "just do it". Also they rely on there ships but there leadership doesn't depend on the ship there in. The leader is someone who's strength comes from within. I found it most interesting that the real person (Shackleton) was the one who combined the traits of two fictional ones (Kirk and Picard). Perhaps the author (Shatner) was trying to illustrate the concept of leadership learned from such real-life examples as Shackleton.