Leadership Lessons From a Cruise Captain (Part 5)

I learned some amazing leadership lessons from a Carnival cruise ship Captain! 

If you missed parts 1–5 read them here. 

Let’s continue our Strengths spotting conversation and see how Captain Enzo is applying his top talent themes as an amazing leader.

Captain Enzo’s #4 is Restorative™. One area I saw this was where he “solved problems before others are even aware they exist, and let people know that you did. This will demonstrate your concern and commitment.” 

One area I really respect and admire about Captain Enzo is his dedication to coaching and raising up future captains and officers. He knows that the the road to the future starts today and that it’s way easier to train leaders when they are new than trying to fix them after they have some years or decades or experience leading in sub-optimal ways. 

This aligns very well with his number 6 which is Ideation® as he has come up with some brilliant ideas of what he thinks he can do beyond his current scope and position. 

For talent theme number five of Learner®, I really love how he uses this theme in an every day fashion. After a routine operation like docking the ship, Captain Enzo would gather his officers together to do a debrief. He would “show people that they are not disposable and that [he] believes in their value by standing by them and being patient while they learn.” 

During these debriefs, Captain Enzo would ask questions of the junior officers to stretch what they knew and help them process through making senior level decisions. As these junior officers would talk through what they knew (or didn’t know), Captain Enzo would gently ask and guide them to get to the correct course of action. This is something I used to do when leading teams because there are multiple benefits. 

For the leader with Learner®, this process is fun as every time we teach, we learn something ourselves (speaking as someone with Learner® #4). For the person we are guiding, we are able to verify if they know what we are asking or know what knowledge gaps there are to fill in. And for everyone else listening in, they get to process and learn along the way as well as have great leadership modeled to them. 

Read part 6 where we get into phase III leadership: leading other leaders and teams. 

PS - if you're not on my email list subscribe here!

Social Media

Watch some free videos online via my social media accounts!