Leadership Lessons From a Cruise Captain (Part 7)

Bringing Balance (To the Force)

Last week we talked about one half of phase 3, leading other leaders. If you missed parts 1–

6, read them here. 

This is a very natural progression: you share how you made yourself better and do the same for other individuals. Then, you coach those individuals on how to do that same thing for people they want to lead. Voila, you’re leading leaders. 

Leading teams is a different ball game. Now, you have a collection of individuals or even a collection of leaders. There are definitely some new dynamics that come into play here. While before, leading with Individualization® or Relator® can be very useful because your focus is on the person you’re leading (whether they’re an individual contributor or a leader). 

With teams, you need to bring balance (to the force) and do what’s best for the team. But even beyond that really, you’re thinking about how your team does what’s best for the division and company. 

I saw Captain Enzo do this in two different ways. 

After every ship maneuver (I’m not sure this is what you call it), they would do an executive team debrief. That could be docking at port or leaving port. The team does a debrief to talk about what went well and what can be done better. Constant improvement, kaizen, or that daily 1% if you’ve read Atomic Habits. 

One specific thing Captain Enzo did that I loved watching was that when they were planning for what was happening tomorrow, he went around and asked different people for their thoughts. He knew enough about where they were at with their knowledge to stretch them by asking a question that was a little bit out of their reach. And then helped guide them to the right answer. 

Stay tuned for next week and I’ll talk more about the other cool team thing I saw Captain Enzo do. 

Read part 8 here!

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