Saturday, April 19, 2014

What kind of leader allows his passengers to drown?

While nautical leadership doesn't have to mean going down with your ship, at a minimum, it means ensuring that your passengers and crew are safe before you leave a sinking ship.
Captain Lee Jun-seok ordered hundreds of passengers to remain in their seats while the ferry sunk, meanwhile slinking off himself along with his crew. Here is is, third from the right, making it safely onto a coast guard vessel while hundreds of teenaged passengers are drowning behind him.

We can put him in the same boat, (pun intended) with Concordia captain Francesco Schettino, who slammed his ship into the rocks, drowning 32 passengers while he fled to safety.
Who did the right thing most recently? How about Sully, who made two trips through his sinking plane to ensure there were no passengers aboard before getting out onto the wing? This was after making an unprecedented no-engine landing on the Hudson River. That's the kind of leadership we need in captains.
What's the common link here? We can't say Navy guys stink and Air Force guys don't though there are plenty who would fight over that statement. Nationalities don't matter. Maybe it's the fact that the two ship captains knew they messed up and tried to escape while Sully was still in rescue mode.

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