It’s Your Ship (extra book)

 

It’s that time again, where I start reading the RA Favorite books.  I’ve met with over 35 students so far and have some new ones I am ordering already.  First, I received a recommendation from my good friend, Steve St. Onge, to read a leadership book called It’s Your Ship by Cpt. Michael Abrashoff.  The book chronicles Cpt. Abrashoff’s transformation of the USS Benfold (one of the Navy ships in the arsenal of combat ships).  Abrashoff notes taking over a very difficult group of staff on the ship of 310+ military personnel.  Here is the list of leadership traits that he is able to enhance (and suggests you can too) through his journey as leader:

Take Command – don’t sit around, look around and fill the void on the team, show you have real “skin in the game”

                Lead by Example – pretty self-explanatory

Listen aggressively – similar to Stephen Covey’s “seek to understand,” rather than being understood

Communicate purpose and meaning – totally important!  Know your values and live them through your actions

Create a climate of trust – you need people around you to be able to be honest with your actions and the ramifications of how they may turn out

Look for results, not salutes – you don’t need people to build you up, look at the end goal

Take calculated risks – weigh options and then act

Go beyond standard procedure – don’t just follow what you are told, sometimes you need to trust gut as well

Build up your people – that’s all you have, make the most of them

Generate unity – interesting strategy (that probably wouldn’t be accepted much in Higher Education), rather than speaking about difference, find commonality

And finally:

Improve your people’s quality of life – we often forget about the front-line people… don’t!

In many ways, a simplistic view on how to lead.  In the end, isn’t it the simple rules that usually work?  A quick read reinforcing much of what we know but with the spin of making it in in the most autocratic lines of work, ever!