Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Coast Guard Small Boat Crews (Teams) and Shared Leadership Dynamics

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While the Coast Guard (CG) as an organization is responsible for a myriad of congressionally mandated missions, few are as iconic as the roles and missions undertaken by CG small boat crews. Depending on the specific asset (small boat) being utilized, the CG sets down a base requirement for operating its small boats. Typically, this includes three positions, crew member, engineer (on larger small boats), and Coxswain. While, organizationally, the Coxswain is responsible for the safe navigation of the vessel, completion of the mission or sortie, and the safety of the crew and passengers, successful crew dynamics rely heavily on the sharing of leadership amongst the crew.

Northouse (2021) defines “a team [as] a type of organizational group that is composed of members who are interdependent, who share common goals, and who must coordinate their activities to accomplish [their] goals” (p. 818). In a CG small boat crew, members all start at the most basic of qualifications, “boat crew member,” a certification that can take roughly six months to complete and is asset specific. Boat crew members will possess a basic understanding of deck seamanship, boat driving skills, and fundamentals search and rescue (SAR) skills. It is typically the very first qualification that new members to a small boat station will obtain, and the allows them to serve on small boats during the various missions that small boat stations generally perform, such as SAR, maritime law enforcement (LE), and port waterway coastal security (PWCS).

After achieving a Boat Crew Member certification, the member will either begin working on their Coxswain qualification, or Boat Crew Engineer qualifications. This will be decided by the individual’s department, Engineering Department members will be expected to become Boat Crew engineers, and Deck Department members will work towards Coxswain. An Engineer is considered the senior most crew member on the boat crew, due to their specialized asset specific machinery knowledge. Engineers can perform emergency repairs on a small boat’s propulsion plant or other electrical and machinery equipment, and the qualification process can take an additional six to twelve months.

Finally, Coxswains are considered the ultimate authority on CG small boats. A coxswain qualification process does not usually begin until the crew member is at least a petty officer (PO) with command authority, and the process can take anywhere between six months or longer. Due to the sheer amount of accountable responsibility that they will have in this role, unit commands will invest large amounts of time and energy to qualify an individual as a coxswain. While a small boat crew’s success can is measured by their ability to respond and execute mission’s successfully together; real success is measured in how comfortable Coxswains are at sharing leadership roles with the rest of the small boat team, especially in regard to internal task leadership actions. In fact, this distributed leadership dynamic is important during fast pace and risky small boat operations because it “allow[s] faster responses to… complex” (Northouse, 2021, p. 822) situations where the environment can degrade quickly and cause risk to CG crews or civilians.

When goal focusing, for instance, during a SAR tow in heavy weather, a small boat’s coxswain is not always able to be involved in managing what his crewmembers are doing on deck because they are focused instead on safely maneuvering the boat. This role would instead fall to the senior most individual on deck, typically the boats engineer, who is expected to “step forward… [and] provid[e] leadership” (p. 822) to organize the evolution, assign roles, and manage operations from the deck. This is especially important when there are “break-in’s,” unqualified passengers working toward qualification, filling positions during deck evolutions.

Besides actual mission execution, training should be constantly occurring on a CG small boat, with every qualified and experienced member working to share their knowledge and experience with everyone else on the boat. A Coxswain might facilitate this free exchange of knowledge by conducting “pre” and “post” evolution briefs, where every member of the team is given an opportunity to provide critical feedback to the group. For instance, as a Coxswain, its helpful to hear from my crew working a long tow, what they need from me, or what I could be doing different or better, because it’s been ages since I’ve been the crew member working the deck in their position. Often, the opportunity to hear from a more experienced peer has more influential weight than having the Coxswain say it.

These same briefings are great opportunities to facilitate decision making during actual SAR cases. I have on a number of circumstances, prior to taking a boat into tow or putting a crew member onboard another vessel, gathered the crew to discuss a plan and how best to execute it. It can be as simple as the Coxswain saying to the crew, “Here’s what I see. Here’s what we have to do. Does anyone have any ideas on how best to do this?” Then stepping back and letting the ideas flow. In these moments, everyone on the crew is being given an opportunity to engage in the leadership process, and the sense of confidence and self-efficacy it promotes amongst team members has long-term benefits for the CG as a whole. Additionally, it builds trust amongst the crew with each other, and whose positive benefits bleed into how the crew interacts with each other when not conducting small boat operations.

Successful Coast Guard small boat crews are not led by authoritarian Coxswain’s who shut out the rest of their crew from the leadership process. Instead, great small boat crews are a team of leadership sharing individuals who dynamically step into and out of this role during operations so as to facilitate individual growth, trust amongst the crew, and successful small boat operations.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory & Practice (9 ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.

Team Effectiveness in a Remote Company

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Right now, I am doing an HR internship at a data tech company. You would expect HR to be role models for teamwork. But, truth be told, it’s been a bit rocky. We’ve been trying to navigate through some issues lately. Our director even had to call an emergency meeting to discuss what’s been going wrong and how we move forward. Our main issues involve interpersonal problems, lack of alignment on goals, no clear norms of conduct, and a fully remote team.

According to Northouse (2021), “Teams are prevalent in today’s organizations because of their ability to accomplish tasks that are too complex for individuals to do alone.” Northouse highlights the vital nature of teamwork, especially in today’s complex environments. The idea being that collective effort and diverse skill sets lead to more effective problem-solving.

“Virtual teams face more difficulty… with trust being more important to virtual teams than to face-to-face teams” (Northouse, 2021, p. 462). Trust is the foundation of effective teamwork, especially in a remote setting where face-to-face interactions are minimal. Reading cues and building relationships become more difficult, which is why our team struggles with misreading tone and body language. This has led to numerous interpersonal conflicts.

“Effective team leadership uses technology to create connections among team members” (Northouse, 2016, p. 462). In a remote work environment, technology is not just a tool for completing tasks but a bridge for making connections between team members. Northouse (2021) explains that leadership in a virtual setting must proactively use digital tools not only to get work done but to also create a sense of unity and closeness among team members. Harvard Business Review discusses this, suggesting structured daily check-ins as a way to keep the remote team aligned (Knight, 2015). Perhaps the interpersonal issues could be avoided with short and frequent video calls, not just as a group but also one-on-one with members of our team.

So, here’s how we are moving forward: Get clearer on what we each do toward our division’s goal, build up trust through regular face-to-face video calls, and establish some formal norms of conduct to help as problems arise. Then maybe, just maybe, we can feel like a real team.

References
Knight, R. (2015). How to manage remote direct reports. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-to-manage-remote-direct-reports

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice (9th ed.). Sage Publications.

High Performing Employees and Team Leadership Theory

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There is no argument that high performing employees are one of the most important aspects to maintain competitiveness. However, discovering how to receive these results could become somewhat confusing. The Team Leadership Theory could be incorporated into a company to promote employee teamwork. Employee collaboration is a strong component that could create successful organizations. The Team Leadership Theory suggests that teams that are aware of their goals and standards, have a results-driven structure, receive support and rewards, tend to be more effective. This blog post will discuss what steps leaders can take to implement each of these three concepts and encourage high performing employees using this theory.

A team must be aware of their expectations and shared goals in order to work towards achieving them. Creating clear goals are important to encourage employees to accomplish them efficiently. According to Northouse (2021), “teams sometimes fail because they are given a vague task and then asked to work out the details. In addition, the team goal must be involving or motivating so that the members believe it to be worthwhile and important” (p. 470). In the work environment, a leader can create a clear vision through holding team meetings, give direction by providing feedback, and communicating the goal using S.M.A.R.T. Goals to define it. Holding team meetings that reinforce goals demonstrate the importance of reaching them. Furthermore, these meetings must create open conversation and encourage employees to express their thoughts or concerns. Providing feedback is important for a leader to help employees find the right direction. Lastly, communicating goals using S.M.A.R.T. Goals communicates the objectives and reasoning for the goal. This could promote priority in teams at work and allows employees to stay on task while they may have other projects. My experience in my internship has showed me that when my supervisor checks in frequently on updates of a team project, I am more likely to think more about it.

Using a structure that is Results-Driven to determine a components that will make the goal attainable. Northouse (2021) describes that, “teams need to find the best structure for accomplishing their goals. Structural features that lead to effective teamwork include task design, team composition, and core norms of conduct” (p. 470). Work leaders can use these features to create strong teams of people who share creative ideas and are adaptive. The task design could be created by identifying the needs to accomplish the goal and making step by step presentations that gives concise structure. A work leader focusing on the team composition could find employees who have diverse backgrounds to incorporate a variety of skills. Also, the leader could assign roles to each team member that would make employees feel that they are of importance to the team and provide direction. A leader create core norms by making a list of rules that teams must follow to respect each other and increase productivity. The leader can make these norms known by communicating them or printing out a sign and hanging it in the office. My supervisor showed us a powerpoint about the culture an expectations of the company but I believe that saying them often enough to engrave it in employees’ minds encourages a productive culture.

The last facet a leader can promote to enhance team productivity is supporting teams and handing out rewards or recognition. Northouse (2021) states that, “a supportive organizational context includes material resources, rewards for excellent performance, and an information system to provide data needed to accomplish the task” (p. 471). A good leader provides materials that give the team access to aid them as they move towards reaching a goal. A leader could provide training materials such as holding seminars to give tips, providing performance evaluations, and sharing research or reports that could relate to their project. In order to stay motivated, a team must receive rewards for doing something good. A leader can reward an employee that is outperforming to set the example of a good team member. Doing so encourages good behavior while also setting the bar high. Lastly, an information system a leader could provide is feedback surveys that they could use to improve future group performance, or to understand who works best together. My team and I during my internship worked on finding candidates through resume databases and LinkedIn. However, the person who find a candidate that is hired receives a bonus which encourages other members to search harder for candidates.

In conclusion, a successful team leader is one who communicates clear details of expectations, makes a structure that best fits the group, and shows support and recognition to workers. By incorporating these steps, it could create a high performing workplace through strong collaboration and sharing of ideas. A leader who is very involved with team members would lead to higher productivity because they will feel more valued and work harder to reach the expectations that are being shared. With the markets high competitiveness and constant change, a company who encompasses teams that can adapt and bring innovative ideas brings originality. A work leader who follows the Team Leadership Theory and the components that make it successful could change the entire culture of a company.

 

References:

Northouse, P.G. (2021). Leadership: Theory & Practice (9th e.d.). SAGE Publishing.

 

Personal Power Vs. Position Power: Flexing Leadership within the U.S. Coast Guard

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Until recently (with the creation of Space Force), the United States Coast Guard (USCG) could boast that not only has it maintained its fleet longer than the U.S. Navy, but that it was the smallest branch of the U.S. Military. Despite this, the service has a diverse and expansive mission set ranging from “Ports, Waterways & Coastal Security,” “Search and Rescue,” “Maritime Environmental Protection,” and maintaining the nations entire “Aid to Navigation” system (United States Coast Guard, n.d.). The Coast Guards success at these endeavors happens because of a cultural approach to leadership that adheres to an extremely flexible chain of command, which grants young service members with extraordinary “positional power” (Northouse, 2021, p. 55) not often found in the larger branches of the military.

Northouse (2021) defines position power as “the power a person derives from a particular office or rank in a formal organizational system” (p. 55). In the military, this is reflected in the normal chain of command. Officers have more authority over enlisted service members, and even amongst the enlisted and officer core, those that have served longer than others and have attend ranks of higher position have more authority than those of lower positions. This military hierarchy is traditionally extremely strict and authoritarian out of a historically proven necessity. In times of conflict and emergencies decisions, actions are accomplished quicker and with less reservation, if there is one person in charge giving orders that subordinates can conduct quickly and with little confusion. In a service as large as the Navy, this is manageable because there are enough leadership positions to manage a large base of subordinates. In a service that has less than 50,000 service members like the Coast Guard, the branch would be unable to meet the large and varied mission set Congress charges it with.

To address this reality, the USCG allows junior members to hold positions of authority necessary for mission execution, provided they have completed on the job training, received the recommendation by oral board of peers, and finally certification from their unit’s Commander to do so. For instance, Search and Rescue missions are usually executed by crewmembers onboard a Coast Guard small boat. These crews usually consist of a Coxswain (boat driver/ mission commander), a boat engineer (special crew member with knowledge of the boat’s mechanical systems), and a certified crewmember (the most basic small boat qualification). On a Coast Guard small boat, the Coxswain is granted by their unit commander, the final authority on all things that happened on the boat. The Coxswain decides how to safely navigate and operate the boat, will give helm and crew commands to his crewmembers, and are often the on scene commander for missions in which they have multiple assets from multiple agencies during Search and Rescue missions, regardless of the rank of any other member on their own small boat.

This is an extraordinary amount of power and authority for a position that can be held by someone who possibly may be less than a year old to the organization. By allowing junior members to prove themselves through the qualification process and hold these sorts of positional power, the Coast Guard is able to extend the versatility of its work force. Additionally, members like me who turn their service into a 20 year career, gain valuable experience that they are expected to use not only in the rest of the career, but to pass down to junior members joining the service, creating a culture of mentorship, nurturing the next generation of Coast Guard leaders.

References

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory & Practice (9 ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.

United States Coast Guard. (n.d.). Missions. Retrieved from www.history.uscg.mil: https://www.history.uscg.mil/Home/Missions/

Balancing Global Outsourcing and Team Cohesion

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In today’s global corporate landscape, outsourcing has become an increasingly popular cost saving measure. It has become a fundamental method of assessing a more varied and diverse talent pool, all while spending less than it would take to hire someone locally. This method does have its drawbacks, however. Leaders must be knowledgeable about the potential downsides of outsourcing before they choose to enact this cost-saving measure. These include the possibility of employees being located in widely different time zones, having poorer communication skills due to a language barrier. Or having a different culture which could affect necessary days off or even performance. By analyzing the positive and negative effects of these various dimensions of cultural diversity due to outsourcing, this post will offer some feedback and suggestions on how to work smoothly with global employees.

Outsourcing can be incredibly cost effective, particularly if employees are hired from countries paid much less than in the leader’s own country. This allows the same work to be completed at a fraction of the cost, assuming the skill level of employees in both locations are comparable. This does, however, introduce a number of possible negatives to overall team cohesion. This is especially evident if the international employees are located in a different timezone. This could necessitate team members working different hours, making scheduling meetings and check-ins difficult. It could further slow critical communication, delaying time-sensitive tasks if not managed properly. Finally, it can often be easier to communicate with different time zones using primarily written communication methods such as email or messaging platforms. This can in turn lead to miscommunication due to recipients not being incredibly proficient in the language and misunderstanding the task. Written communication further lacks facial ques and such nonverbal communications which would have otherwise helped the employee understand the situation.

Diversity in the workplace goes beyond simply filling a quota or adhering to the latest social rules. The core value is truly about appreciating what everyone, as individuals, has to offer (Northouse, 2022). It is the leader’s responsibility to support this kind of diversity and set the right example. This could include understanding and respecting the different holidays and customs that are important to people of varying communities. When showing care and consideration for individuals and their cultural identity, leaders are showing their employees that they are respected. On a more negative note, having a diverse workplace can prove to be more difficult, especially when being considerate about negative stereotypes or unfair ways of thinking. As an example, if the leader is a woman leader, she may be subjected to less respect just because of her gender (Northouse, 2022). It is important to emphasize that this way of thinking would not be acceptable from any party. To discover if this may be an issue, it may be prudent to have employees take a Gender-Leader Bias Questionnaire which allows people to become aware of their own implicit biases so they may overcome them (Northouse, 2022). Leadership must take a strong stand on treating everyone fairly and ensuring the workplace enforces rules that respect each individual. They must strive to make a space where everyone feels heard and important, no matter their gender, race, religion, or where they come from.

Managing a team that works around the globe necessarily means dealing with different time zones. To do this well, managers should use online calendars that can be set to show everyone’s schedule in their own time zone. This allows for the ability to plan meetings so that they occur when everyone is available, no matter their time zone. Leaders should also communicate with their team often, maybe even every day for a quick meeting. In these short chats, often called “stand-ups,” everyone can share what they plan to work on and if there’s anything that might impede their productivity. In this way, managers can ensure that all team members understand their responsibilities. On a similar note, it may be beneficial for leaders to consider training their teams to communicate better. When everyone feels like they can share their ideas clearly, the entire team can improve due to the increase in ideas. This could certainly prove to be impractical, however. Saving money by hiring people from different locations should not leave the team in a place where they are unable to communicate or understand each other easily. If a certain individual does not speak the language the company uses well, they might need to take some language classes before they join the team. This could cost a bit of money, but if it would lead to everyone understanding each other, it would be worth it. On a final note, not hiring someone just because they do not speak the language can seem unfair, but if it means the team is unable to work together, it is a tough choice that has to be made.

To summarize, outsourcing can greatly assist in cutting down costs, but only if leaders are ready to handle the possibly difficult communication aspects that come with it. For businesses today, using outsourcing and valuing diversity are key. Good communication helps teams work across time zones, and tools that help everyone stay on the same page are really available. Training to improve how we speak and write to each other can mitigate confusion. Workshops on how to communicate with people from different cultures can help too, and video calls can make talking online feel more like talking in person. Leaders should not only accept diversity, but also embrace it. They should teach their teams to understand and respect each other’s backgrounds, which includes respecting different traditions and holidays. Leaders should show respect and deal quickly with any unfair treatment. When leaders act this way, they make a workplace that is both smart about outsourcing and inclusive of everyone. This is how to make the most of a global workspace.

 

Citations

Northouse, P. G. (2022). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). SAGE Publishing.

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