Facing Our Oceans

"That is where the explorer Vasco de Gama learned to sail.”  My friend told me that as we looked down on a small sandy bay filled with colorful fishing boats in Sines, Portugal. Later that day, we traveled north to Lisbon where the Sea Discoveries Monument honors the voyagers who, 500 years earlier, departed Lisbon harbor and set-out in search of places no European had ever been before.
 
No other professional has faced more risk and uncertainty then an explorer.  Considering what these travelers faced can give us insight for our own challenges. So what were the obstacles faced by Columbus, de Gama and the other explorers?
 
We all sometimes feel like a small ship on a big ocean.  Columbus’s favorite ship Nina was only 65 feet long. That’s only a few feet more than the distance from home plate to a pitcher’s mound.  Columbus also faced some significant obstacles:

• Not enough money. If not for the King and Queen of Spain, Columbus’s journey would never have happened.
• Lack of provisions.  An explorer's first expenses went toward obtaining ships and crew.  Whatever was left was used to purchase food and drink.
• No maps.  That’s right…nobody had ever been there before.
• Productivity lost to sickness.  Cramped quarters were stressful and promoted a breeding ground for disease.
• A frightened crew asking questions like, "So Captain, since you’ve never been there, how will you know your at the right place when you see it?”
• Crew revolt.  Months of not seeing the fruits of success made for tense times to say the least. Mutinies or near insurrections were not uncommon.

Each of the obstacles that were faced by these voyagers parallels the challenges we encounter in our personal life planning, starting new ventures or growing an existing organization.

Good Leaders Value People

Good Leaders Value People

Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc. is a global supplier of manufacturing technology. At the beginning of “the great recession” in 2008 they saw their orders fall by almost one-third. They contemplated layoffs but instead decided to institute a furlough program so that no one lost their job but everyone “participated in the suffering.” They acted like a family, not an institution. A look at one sentence in their statement of values sums it up when it says, "We measure success by the way we touch the lives of people."

Fair and sometimes heroic actions, during a crisis, result from a strong belief system. That is the essence of great leadership. Danger may be all around, however, people are safe. In the words of Robert Townsend, who transformed Avis into a rental car giant, “True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders. A leader is … someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs.”

Leadership is Action

Leadership is an Attitude Not a Position

We need to understand that leadership is more about attitude and perspective than position.  Stephen R. Covey writes, “Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don't see themselves as leaders.”  Broadcast industry executive Donald H. McGannon, provides greater focus when he when he defines leadership as ”… action, not position.”

Some of the most compelling examples of leadership take place in many of war’s most brutal theaters.  A 2013 CBS News report describes the actions of Army Captain Will Swenson, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Afghanistan.  This is what they reported from their interview with Sargent Kevin Duerst, crew chief of a medevac helicopter:

Sargent First Class Kenneth Westbrook had been hit in the throat and was bleeding to death. Swenson and a medic helped Westbrook into the helicopter. Then, amid the hell of combat, something beautiful happened.  "Sargent Westbrook kind of leaned down and Captain Swenson kind of leaned down and they had, they kind of looked at each other and it appeared that they were talking, but Captain Swenson kissed him on the forehead and then tapped the side of his head," Duerst said.

Later that day, as Duerst and his crew flew in for more wounded soldiers, they observed Swenson under enemy fire aiding wounded Afghan soldiers and searching for four missing Americans.  His final act that day was going forward under fire and recovering the bodies of the four missing Americans.  Swenson leadership was not because of his position but because of his attitude and his values.  It was the right thing and he had to do it.