When things go wrong, a leader puts in the grind

When we were doing our ocean races the skipper would often have to make quick decisions and constantly get the crew to do big manoeuvres with the sails when conditions suddenly changed.

We would constantly trim the sails, or even change them up or down in terms of their size and shape. A crew would adjust the sails?to be as powerful as possible. This was hard work and on those big boats we would have to put a lot of energy into the grinders and winches.

Very often things went wrong. An unexpected wind change could cause a crash jibe (forcefully flipping the mainsail and boom to the opposite side of the boat). This is very dangerous for the crew and damages the boat. Or we also had hourglass twists in storm winds that caused our spinnaker to tear from the top to the bottom – a disaster for a race boat!

I am currently in South Africa visiting my mum, who I haven’t seen in almost four years because of COVID. I’ve been here for three weeks, and tried to continue my work. Last week we had a meetup but it didn't proceed because just after we opened the meeting my internet connection failed and we had to close the zoom call. It's so difficult to manage these factors while travelling, especially in a country that is seriously battling with load shedding and power supply issues that impact greatly on internet connection. I've had many problems with meetings and working from South Africa.?

Murphy is always present, and no amount of preparation can prevent things from going wrong. We have to adjust our expectations, have back-up plans and leaders have to be open to adjust the way we manage when our circumstances change. An attitude of flexibility, a tolerance for unexpected complications, scenario planning, and patience with the things one can’t control is crucial. Having a mindset of calm and control in a crisis is also important to instil confidence and calm in the people around us.

I still admire our skipper on the Clipper race who never lost it or screamed at us when things went wrong!

I had to rethink the way I am going to work and adjust my plans in the last couple of weeks.

We will not have our Leadership Chit Chat on Friday, the 3rd of February. And next week (10th of February) I am doing a 2 hours free Master Class, which I am very excited about and I really hope you'll be able to attend. I'm doing a lot of research to gain deep insights into the leadership issues of the day, and thinking about how we can approach those with a spirit of adventure. Here is the link again.

Please share on your networks and I hope to see you there with a friend or colleague.?