When the Unsinkable Sank

Leadership lessons from the deck of Titanic

Gordon MacDonald

When the Titanic was launched from the Belfast ship yards, the world was just acclimating to electricity, the radio, and the automobile. The Wright brothers had demonstrated the possibility of fixed-wing flight just nine years before. And now here was one more mind-boggling innovation: a glorious ship that was speedy andunsinkable. What an appropriate name, Titanic (meaning great force or power), for a ship designed to triumph over nature. But as everyone who has seen the movie knows, the unsinkable sank one dark night on its first time out in the ocean.

One of the more recent and interesting Titanic-themed books is Andrew Wilson's Shadow of the Titanicwhich focuses less on the ship itself and more on the people who were aboard for that maiden voyage to New York. How did they handle themselves when the abandon-ship order was given? And what happened to them in the years that followed?

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