Leading on the Edge: Extraordinary Stories and Leadership Insights from The World's Most Extreme Workplace

Chapter 22      

When you're spending all your time managing, don't forget to lead

We had been on the ice for nigh on eight weeks and summer was quickly drawing to a close. We hadn't yet had a sunset, but already the air was chill with expectation of winter. We pushed on at a rapid pace for the rest of summer.

Driving under the influence

It was very important to stay on top of the technical management of the station but also to keep an eye out for simmering tensions. We had been lucky so far. Despite the availability of alcohol we hadn't had any alcoholrelated incidents, until one of the summerers rolled a quad bike at 3 am.

Tuesday 25th January

Busy day. We had our station leadership team meeting at 9 am and all we could talk about was how to deal with the quad bike incident. One bad egg, and so on and so on.

I'm really annoyed with this expeditioner. After this and the plane crash our safety record has tanked. I was so hopeful that we would have a clean slate.

Wearing my deputised ‘special constable’ hat I threatened him a lot, but didn't arrest, imprison or formally write up the illegal aspects. Of course, I did all the workplace stuff like the asset assessment and the OH&S incident report. I'm so glad he's headed back to Australia in just a couple of weeks.

The end of science

We pushed on with our work with a greater sense of urgency than ever before. Days were long and the ...