Orde-Lees' Journal - November 21, 1915: "This evening as we were mostly taking it easy & reading we heard Sir Ernest call out, "She's going." We were all out in a second & up on the lookout station & other points of vantage & sure enough there was our poor ship a mile & a half away breathing her last. She went down bows first, her stern raised up in the air. It gave one a sickening sensation to see it, for mastless & useless as she has been she yet formed a welcome landmark and has always seemed to link us with civilization. Without her our destitution seems more acute, our isolation more complete."
NOTE: It was going to take an extraordinary leader to guide the crew through the ordeal that lay ahead. Fortunately, they had that leader in Shackleton.
Years later, Macklin recalled that as the crew watched Endurance sink, Shackleton was standing slightly apart from the rest. When the ship finally disappeared, the Boss turned around and seeing their worried faces, he said to them, "So now we'll go home."
In that one short sentence, Shackleton gave his team a goal and a vision. He redirected their attention away from the painful scene in front of them towards a positive outcome, and, most important of all, he communicated to them his own optimism.
Shackleton's entire leadership strategy is contained in this one anecdote.