This paper focuses on the ocean going ship Masters and aims at identifying their leadership profiles and understanding their attitudes and reaction in given circumstances. To this end, the characteristics of ships as working environments and the factors that lead to the differentiation of the roles of different crewmembers on board ships have been analyzed.
The first observation is the global acceptance of Situational Leadership by the participants. Ship Masters believe that leaders are created through experiences and situations and their efficacy depends on their relationship with their subordinates. They appear to believe in principle in a more democratic and participative style of leadership, however they adapt to the situation by becoming more directive. The responses highlighted that the degree of orientation either to people or to tasks is differentiated according to the situation. In addition, the importance of the team in the effectiveness of the leader is emphasized. Ship masters consider a crucial factor the coherence of the team, which must be maintained in any situation. Related to this is the ship Master’s perception of the leader’s sources of power. It is acknowledged that power stems mostly from hierarchy, the ability to reward, and expertise.
An interesting element is also the acceptance of the ship as a type of Total Institution by the ship Master, which, however, differs from other such institution identified in the literature, as the ship spends time at sea, continually changing its location. Within this institution, despite its highly hierarchical structure that could favor legitimate and coercive power, expertise remains the main source of power for the ship Master.
Respondents also highlighted the importance of the team and of the motivation of crewmembers as a crucial factor for its effectiveness. There seems to be a unanimous acceptance of the role of the Master as crewmember mentor.
Ship Masters appear to prefer having the ship supervised by the office and at the same time having the office involved in the analysis of the situation and the relevant actions. They would like to control the communication of the crew with the office and also be able to disobey orders from the office in low risk situations. They would like to be given more power as leaders in the selection of their crewmembers, and they state their willingness to continue their career as ship Masters.
An interesting result relates to the variability in responses. As observed from the standard deviations throughout Tables 2 to 6 the respondents appear to express their perceptions based on their personal experience. This result is aligned with situational theory, which states that the selection of the most appropriate action from the leader depends on a number of variables such as the task characteristics, his/her experience and the maturity of the followers. In addition this significant level of variability is aligned with the shipmasters’ view that leaders are created through experiences and situations and their efficacy depends on their relationship with their subordinates. Thus personal experience reflect the bias in the participants’ responses.
If one takes into account the increased interest of the world maritime community in the human element, then research on the leadership skills of employees that bear the responsibility for the management of people onboard is of primary importance. While the present analysis contributes to the understanding of the role of ship Master as leader, it fails to confront several limitations stemming mainly from sample size. It should be mentioned, for example, that there are factors related to specific characteristics of the shipping companies, as for instance the number of ships they manage or the Human Resources Management practices they implement with regard to crew recruitment and selection, which might affect the ship Masters’ behavior. Thus, this research should be considered as the first step of a wider research on the issue. Some suggestion are listed below:
Sample increase. The questionnaire could be addressed to more ship Masters from different national and business contexts.
Conducting action research on-board in order to capture real time data.
Inclusion of the diversity issue (cultural or other) in the analysis to research its effect on leadership profiles.
This paper focuses on the ocean going ship Masters and aims at identifying their leadership profiles and understanding their attitudes and reaction in given circumstances. To this end, the characteristics of ships as working environments and the factors that lead to the differentiation of the roles of different crewmembers on board ships have been analyzed.The first observation is the global acceptance of Situational Leadership by the participants. Ship Masters believe that leaders are created through experiences and situations and their efficacy depends on their relationship with their subordinates. They appear to believe in principle in a more democratic and participative style of leadership, however they adapt to the situation by becoming more directive. The responses highlighted that the degree of orientation either to people or to tasks is differentiated according to the situation. In addition, the importance of the team in the effectiveness of the leader is emphasized. Ship masters consider a crucial factor the coherence of the team, which must be maintained in any situation. Related to this is the ship Master’s perception of the leader’s sources of power. It is acknowledged that power stems mostly from hierarchy, the ability to reward, and expertise.An interesting element is also the acceptance of the ship as a type of Total Institution by the ship Master, which, however, differs from other such institution identified in the literature, as the ship spends time at sea, continually changing its location. Within this institution, despite its highly hierarchical structure that could favor legitimate and coercive power, expertise remains the main source of power for the ship Master.Respondents also highlighted the importance of the team and of the motivation of crewmembers as a crucial factor for its effectiveness. There seems to be a unanimous acceptance of the role of the Master as crewmember mentor.Ship Masters appear to prefer having the ship supervised by the office and at the same time having the office involved in the analysis of the situation and the relevant actions. They would like to control the communication of the crew with the office and also be able to disobey orders from the office in low risk situations. They would like to be given more power as leaders in the selection of their crewmembers, and they state their willingness to continue their career as ship Masters. An interesting result relates to the variability in responses. As observed from the standard deviations throughout Tables 2 to 6 the respondents appear to express their perceptions based on their personal experience. This result is aligned with situational theory, which states that the selection of the most appropriate action from the leader depends on a number of variables such as the task characteristics, his/her experience and the maturity of the followers. In addition this significant level of variability is aligned with the shipmasters’ view that leaders are created through experiences and situations and their efficacy depends on their relationship with their subordinates. Thus personal experience reflect the bias in the participants’ responses.If one takes into account the increased interest of the world maritime community in the human element, then research on the leadership skills of employees that bear the responsibility for the management of people onboard is of primary importance. While the present analysis contributes to the understanding of the role of ship Master as leader, it fails to confront several limitations stemming mainly from sample size. It should be mentioned, for example, that there are factors related to specific characteristics of the shipping companies, as for instance the number of ships they manage or the Human Resources Management practices they implement with regard to crew recruitment and selection, which might affect the ship Masters’ behavior. Thus, this research should be considered as the first step of a wider research on the issue. Some suggestion are listed below:Sample increase. The questionnaire could be addressed to more ship Masters from different national and business contexts.
Conducting action research on-board in order to capture real time data.
Inclusion of the diversity issue (cultural or other) in the analysis to research its effect on leadership profiles.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
