For the past few months, I have been considering what it takes to be a leader. Hence, I’ve decided to find an occupation for my personal case study. From that particular occupation, I will examine what are the right attitudes as well as characteristics to be a leader.
Hence, I finally decided that a captain of a ship would be the best possible example. (This coincides with one of my favourite character created by favourite author.) In the seafaring age when majority of people still heavily relies on ship for travelling, trading etc.
The direction of the captain: A captain is the person behind, the modern term, “the driving seat” of his ship. The direction of the ship will be determined by his ambition (vision) and his aspirations. This would likely determine what type of activities that he will undertake. Be it trading or piracy or shipping or protection of his nation or raiding his enemy. The direction will likely determine what types of missions that he will undertake to ensure the achievability of his direction.
Sailors (Personnel): To operate his ship in order to achieve his ambition and aspirations, a captain needs to recruit sailors. Selection of sailors by captain should be stringent to ensure that the ship would be operating effectively and efficiently. In order to do this, he must clearly know what type of skills as well as duties required for his upcoming sailors. I’m sure you wouldn’t want a poor chef to be working for you on a very long distance journey.
However, there are uncontrollable factor to take into account when recruiting sailors. Skilled sailors usually would need push factor in order for him to join the captain’s crew. The factors could be ranging from similar ambition and aspiration, or reputation of the captain, or even for wealth and gain.
A captain must also be concerned about succession planning as staff turnover would most likely occur. It is the norm as there will be someone who will perish while sailing or some of them would be looking for other alternatives to make a living. He must ensure that someone would be able to fill into his shoes if anything happens.
Resource management: An able captain would be able to manage his resources very well. There are plenty of resources that he needs to balanced out such as food, drinking water, money, enough clothes to repair sails, timber to repair hull, etc. Insufficient of one of this resources would be the downfall of his ship and his crew. Hence, the captain must ensure that his resources would be available when it is critically needed. A brave captain would deviate from his ultimate goal to ensure his survivability of his ship and crew.
For now, this is my opinion. Will highlight more if i have further points to share.
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