Maritime Leadership

Assertive communicators speak for what they want without violating the rights of others, clearly state their opinions, and use hand gestures with a calm or happy face. By contrast, aggressive communication is about demonstrating that you can violate the rights of a crew member.

Aspects that apply more often to the maritime industry than to others include an unstable workload due to changing weather, the widespread use of handover from one team to the next, and constantly changing teams because of leave rotations.

An engaged crew member can say: "I have the training and resources needed to thrive in my role"; "my opinion is heard and valued by my colleagues"; and "I know what is expected of my work". Leaders who have been on board and experienced hardship at sea — "one of the team" — earn higher empathy for the crew and higher respect from them.

To lead a team through difficult times, remind the team that their work is valuable, and describe how the team or company plans to move forward. Factors that commonly contribute to maritime accidents include lack of communication between the Master and the crew, lack of procedure training, and lack of teamwork in the crew.

A situation becomes a conflict you need to confront and solve when a behaviour in the crew is negatively impacting the performance of others. Team building is defined as "the ability to identify and motivate individual employees to form a team that stays together, works together and achieves together".

Self-aware leaders are open-minded about their weaknesses, mindful of their own thoughts, emotions and values, and frequently ask a question out of curiosity.

• Assertive: state opinions, respect others' rights, calm face/hand gestures. Aggressive: violating others' rights.
• Maritime-specific: weather-driven workload, frequent handovers, changing crews from leave rotations.
• Engaged crew: has training/resources, is heard and valued, knows expectations.
• "One of the team" leader: higher empathy and respect.
• Hard times: remind the team their work is valuable; describe the plan forward.
• Accident contributors: poor Master–crew communication, lack of procedure training, lack of teamwork. Confront conflict when behaviour harms others' performance.
• Team building = identifying and motivating people to form a team that stays, works and achieves together. Self-aware: open-minded, mindful, curious.

1. STCW Convention and Code — leadership and teamwork competence at management level (Sections A-II/1 and A-II/2).