The subject of governance mostly relates to
accountability with finances, ethics and morals. But the governance issues with
the Titanic was more of an accountability with regulation for
professionalism.The titanic disaster was one
that could have been avoided, just like many other disasters going on today in
organisations. Before we go into details of the leadership issues and common mistakes in leadership, Here's a little story of the "Love ship", (as I like to call it).
JUST A LITTLE STORY:
On the 14th of
April 1912, The Titanic set out on her maiden trip from Europe to America (New
York) with 2,223 passengers and crew on board. Despite several warnings of
icebergs that were received from other ships by the Titanic, they were ignored and kept going at full speed, just four days into the journey, an iceberg was
sighted 450m ahead, all attempts were made to prevent a collision with the
iceberg, but it was to no avail. The collision with the iceberg resulted in the
damage of the rivets holding the metal sheets together; and to cut the long story short, the ship sank in under 2
hours and 40 minutes.
Of the 2,223 people on board, 1517 (68 per
cent) died and only 706 (32 per cent) survived (Rayment & Jonathan, 2011). However, Titanic was not the only one out there on the North Atlantic Ice field, The nearest ship which was The Californian, which was at 19 NM (nautical miles, about 35km)
from Titanic and had already turned off its wireless at midnight. The Carpathian,
which was another ship 56 NM away, received the rescue call and headed its way to The Titanic. When Titanic launched a signal flare, the Californian that was
traveling nearby did not take it as a rescue signal and left without stopping
and at 4:10am, Carpathian arrived; 2hr 10 min after Titanic sank.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
From this short story, it is quite obvious that the Captain showed signs of nervousness and also appeared to be
indecisive. For example he did not issue a full call for evacuation nor order
his officers to load the lifeboats, He did not adequately organize the crew, He
withheld crucial information from his officers and crewmen and gave ambiguous
and impractical orders. He could have just done all of these, the moment he knew the ship was going to hit the iceberg. but instead, he panicked and waited too long to take an immediate action. Two leadership mistakes common to business leaders; Managers and CEOs to be precise are;
- ð Misleadership: Most leaders and people in the position of leadership mislead when they have wrong information, but sometime it is out of character/attitude (e.g fear, anxiety, anger amongst a few). The moment the situation becomes chaotic some leaders become anxious which makes them make wrong decisions or make the right decisions at the wrong time like the captain of the Titanic.
- ð Situational leadership: This is actually a leadership theory. Situational theory is an act of changing or creating a decision as a result of the change in present situation. It recognises the fact that leaders don’t have to be stiff, but flexible as diff'rent strokes are for different folks. A change in situation is common because, things might sometimes not go as planned, But instead leaders are not meant to allow the change in situation influence them negatively as it was in the case of the captain of My love ship :).
- Lesson: Maintaining a state of calmness is the key to overcoming situations similar to that of The Titanic. Stay calm, Think, Strategize and Take action. It is rather easier said than done but this is the wisest thing to do. (I also think this is applicable to everyone else as well)
These are just a few major leadership mistakes or issues I have observed, and I am sure there are numerous lessons to learn from this story that we are all familiar with (I presume). You can kindly drop your comments, contribute to this post on the comment section and try to stay calm in a "manic panic" situation . I will focus on governance (Board of Directors) in the next issue and thereafter stakeholders.
Remi Ademiju
BIZLEAD
writer
07456958256
@remiademiju
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