Leadership Lessons From Captain Phillips

In the movie “Captain Phillips” a US merchant marine cargo ship was attacked by Somali pirates. In order to save the crew, Captain Phillips ended up being taken as a hostage in a life boat with the pirates. After a standoff between the pirates and the military, ultimately pirates were killed and Captain Phillips was rescued. The movie exposes similarities and differences in the leadership styles of Captain Phillips on one hand and Somali pirates Captain Abduwali Muse.

Captain Phillips, while tackling the emergency situation, exhibited a good example by showing his spirit of confidence and maintaining his own sense of confidence and control by his exemplary behavior and proved, that as leaders, we need to be ready to succeed even in the worst conditions. As a leader you don’t have to be friends with the crew but you have to earn their trust. The Captain was a tough and demanding leader but he was predictable. Too harsh an approach for a business provides a framework for how to lead in stressful conditions. Economists categorize business conditions as “head winds or tails winds” and job of the leader was to anticipate. Captain Phillips shows himself as a competent, responsible, selfless, servant leader who puts himself in danger in order to save his crew members.

Pirate Captain Muse was just the Opposite-Inadequate for the job, selfish, cruel and determined in fulfilling his aim. He was a pure example of an autocratic leader. Considering their differences and similarities we can take out eight main lessons from these two leaders.

1.           Risk taking
2.           Listening
3.           Accountability
4.           Responsibility
5.           Strategy and planning  
6.          .Flexibility
7.           Empowerment of followers
8.           Emotional Intelligence 

Leadership means a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of common task, Captain Phillips appears as a very serious, strict and reserved man. He is a real life leader. He makes immediate decisions and unites crew members. He is optimistic and encourages his team members. He knew the drill in situation of piracy attack and his crew followed his orders. He was able to see things objectively and from different point of views which is the critical skills for leaders. Even in most dangerous and unexpected situations as a true leader he remained calm, took initiative and improvised creative strategies and he had advance training and planning beforehand to handle the emergency situations. With his immediate decisions and outstanding insight, he exhibited high responsibility of his profession and protected his crew members. Thus he put forth a good example of a true leader and hero in real life situation by adopting the above mentioned traits expected of a good leader.