This attitude was making me a bad leader...

Ahoy,

Today I want to cover what I think was one of my biggest shortfalls as a leader during my time on board a submarine.

My attitude.

I’ll dive into the story of what was going on, and how it ended up affecting my team!

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I’d been running a team on board for nearly two years.

It was a crazy stressful job.

Regardless of your department or rank, being on board a submarine can be stressful.

There is always so much to do, with pressures coming from so many different directions.

As an engineering officer during this period, my role was to support the running of a maintenance project that would see the unit ready to return to sea for operations.

But like many projects, it over ran.

You see, unlike other pieces of equipment, submarines like to fight back.

You fix one problem, and like the hydra, 2 more grow back in it’s place.

While our department was not in a terrible state, i.e., we were prepared to sail on time, the longer we stayed alongside, the more problems seemed to arise.

On top of this, we all have lives outside of work. Which always impacts you at work (something I came to realise).

Part of my role on board was also to support the junior officers that where training.

As part of our career pipeline, we spend time on board with the sole role of qualifying as a submariner and gaining our “dolphins” - A badge worn by RN submariners, and a great symbol of pride.

As a secondary role, these new officers are also there to learn how the department runs in preparation for coming back to lead a section of the department.

After a stressful year an half, I was coming towards the end of my time.

I knew that I had given the role my everything, but there where definitely gaps and things I wish I had done better.

But the best way to understand how you performed is to ask people.

So I asked the junior officers for some feedback. And one answer popped up twice:

“Your attitude was too negative.”

One of the team member spoke about how this negatively impacted their view of the role itself. A role they were soon to take on!

Until this point I had never realised the impact I had on others.

I had no idea that people were even paying attention to me most of the time!

Following this experience, I made sure that at the places I worked at next, I took the time to consciously think about how my attitude affected those around me.

By consciously making this change I received far more positive feedback on my attitude and how I supported a much more positive working environment.

That day you don’t have the energy to talk to people or crack a smile, if you translate that into gripes and moans down the chain of command, that will reflect itself straight back at you in the performance of your team.

It will reflect back at you in the attitudes of your team.

And when you are around people reflecting that, you being to feel the negativity even more.

Before you realise it, you’ve turned a bad day in the office, to a culture of negativity…

That all sounds rather dramatic but I really want to impress onto you the importance of attitude.

Honestly, we all have bad days, that’s okay.

But your team are not your therapist!

It’s okay to share with them your frustrations, you’re human after all. But like all of leadership, it’s about balance.

I was unaware of my negativity and how it impacted my team.

Be aware of the image you’re portraying to your team, and don’t fall into the same trap!

I really hope you got something out of this one.

As always, have a great day.

Reece