The Leadership Onboard

Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. Never forget that no leader has ever become great without audacity. Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.

I’m going to talk about my experience when I joined the ship for the first time and the leadership qualities I observed. When I boarded the Ship, after 3days my ship sailed to another country. I could not make calls with my Father. You will be away from home and land and most of the times it’s you and crew members only. Sometimes we are not allowed to go for shore leave in some countries. My vessel had a multinational crew with different cultures. There is a need to respect everyone and their cultures. We have to be a bit careful initially but in no time we became well vested and acquainted with each other’s culture. For me, I never had a problem with any crew member. We had no specific timings for work. Sometimes we have day job, sometimes night jobs. When it comes to food sometimes it's magnificent and sometimes difficult. When the ship is sailing we wouldn't have much work. Thank God I have a laptop. Movies will be available on board. It may be difficulty in the beginning but life will be great.

Leaders onboard the Ship like the Captain, Chief Officer, Chief Engineer and Second Engineer needs very good leadership skills to effectively coordinate the crew, set good standards and objectives and monitor performance , all this good qualities I saw in my leaders onboard . My Captain had a variety of leadership skills, in different situations he would apply different leadership style, and this was to ensure that all the organizational goals are met and also avoiding incident and accidents.

 My Captain was a natural leader who believed that his great service was due to the men that served under him, and his success as a Captain could not have been obtained unless the men under him believed in his cause. He was selfless in His actions and decisions time after time and beat the thought to be unobtainable goals during his command throughout. 

I can still remember the words my Captain usually says to me “A career at sea isn’t for the fainthearted. Getting cargo safely from Port A to B is paramount and you can’t afford to make mistakes.”

This made me understand that there are no rooms for errors; I came to realize that these words are necessary for me to become a world class seafarer thereby no room for mistakes and error, because the errors we make onboard can lead to millions of dollars losses and the destruction of the maritime environment.

My Captain encouraged Camaraderie onboard the vessel because we all have become a family , the is a need for  a friendly working environment so that work efficiency , productivity and profitability would be improved .

To recapitulate I will say Leadership onboard wasn’t limited only to the shipboard management committee, every crew onboard possessed a certain leadership quality, so I learnt a lot from everyone. The type of leadership I experience ranged from Autocratic, Bureaucratic, Democratic and Liaises-faire leadership styles which were applied in different scenarios to increase efficiency, productivity and obtain organizational goals with zero incident and accident.

 The biggest misconception on ships is that only managers and supervisors are leaders. However, this is untrue. Virtually all members of the ship are leaders in one form or another. Obviously there are varying levels of leadership, but when someone works onboard a ship there’s tons of effort, time, energy, training, and practice to make them into the best leaders. I like to look at the levels of leadership on a ship like buildings on land. The moment you spend your first night on a ship, you start out on the ground level or the level of a one-story building. As you hone your skills and develop more leadership traits, your building increases in height.

From my experience some of the qualities we seafarers have to learn from our superiors and develop are:

Honesty: We can’t achieve continued success without honesty

Delegation: We can’t run the ship alone

Resourcefulness: We have to be out of the box thinkers

Positive Attitude: We can make any situation better

Respect: Respect is a two way street, we must respect everyone

Confidence: Confidence exudes success

Punctuality: We must always be on time to perform our best

Knowledge: We understand that success comes from learning

Passion: We are passionate about delivering the best service

Hospitality: We live to serve our passengers and each other

Accountability: Actions speak louder than words

Commitment: We are committed to doing our best

Generosity: We care for everyone

Courage: Challenges are overcome with courage

Discipline: Every decision has consequence

Creativity: Dare to dream

Motivate: Teams work better than individuals

All Pic Source: Me