Steering the Ship

By Edmund McKay, Head of Care at KDS

There’s a great website called wired. Recently they ran a photo article about the most awesome cockpits in the world including a Boeing 787-8, the Lockheed blackbird and the Oasis of the Sea the world’s largest cruise ship.

In the caption attached to the cruise ship it says that the skipper of this massive cruise liner sits atop a cushy leather throne but that the seat doesn’t get much use: “When we’re going into port, we typically push the chairs out of the way and stand up. It makes us more agile,” says Bill Wright, who was the first captain of Oasis of the Seas. The captain goes on to say that he doesn’t actually steer the ship. “The port and starboard command chairs have built-in joysticks for controlling the ship,” he says. But those are typically operated by other officers.

So what then does the captain do? According to Wright “Captains should be mentoring and teaching.”

There is a comparison here to KDS and Stevie Kidd, he runs a big company but he’s delegated the work to us, his department heads. So instead of doing everything himself he spends a lot of his time mentoring and teaching and making sure we do it well. In others words he manages the ship.

Great leaders are defined by their ability to delegate, coach and mentor not by their ability to do everything themselves.

 

Posted by Lorraine Hart on 28 February 2011 in : KDS Training

2 Comments

Posted by christine Ovens on 03 March 2011

Sums up Stevie Kidd''s leadership skills in one sentence. Well done Edmund!!

Posted by Joe Wilson on 28 February 2011

Brilliant Edmund. Rerally enjoyed reading that. Reminded me of the quote - "Managers do things right, but Leaders do the right things."

Add your comment