This business professor, selling his books on leadership in a Ted x (!) talk lost me when he called Amundson "forgotten". Like hell, no, Amundson is not at all forgotten. And Shackleton is famous for saving everyone on his doomed Endurance expedition under extreme circumstances.

Only measuring leadership, as im the Ted x(!) talk, with achievement of a stated, and up to then impossible, goals and ignoring a leader who saves everyone from death is at best short sighted, at worst ignorant. Did I mention the guy in the talk is a business professor with a book on leadership?

Pretty much everyone during this period was an amateur compared to Amundsen.

Including the previously mentioned Nansen. Nansen was a generation earlier though, and among other things built the ship Amundsen used.

Amundsen made something difficult look easy. Everyone else made the difficult look - difficult. And survived.

Except for Scott who died.

There is an analogy there with software projects by the way, except for maybe the dying part replaced with general failure.