Leadership skills you should apply to social life onboard

Being a leader in business is a powerful tool that helps you motivate and inspire others. Adding leadership skills in your social life onboard will help you build stronger relationships with crewmates, improve the feeling of trust and communication and boost your mental health.

Being a leader hides many tips and tricks when it comes to social life. Social interaction is an important part of people’s lives, improving their mental health and the overall mood, keeping in mind that seafaring remains a challenging job, now more than ever due to the pandemic.

A 2019 SAFETY4SEA poll identified the following five obstacles to social life onboard:

• Increased workload/ Fatigue – 38%
• Technology and Internet onboard – 19%
• New legislation and subsequent bureaucracy – 17%
• Lack of team bonding and team activities – 16%
• Remoteness from home and close friends – 10%

Having a good mental health at work and good management go hand in hand. Happy employees are generally considered to be more motivated and consequently more productive. Thus, keeping a balance between work and social life is always a good idea.

Five tips to socialization

1. Take time for regular tours round the ship and have informal chats. Spend time with others and participate in social life onboard.
2. Don’t try to suddenly take huge steps. To become more social, you need to learn how to expand your comfort zone, slowly.
3. Don’t get overwhelmed by those who speak too much.
4. Don’t control yourself all the time.
5. Don’t be afraid of criticism. Other people are usually less judgmental than you think.

Being more social is not an easy task to do. Although nobody wants to think of their social life as a business that needs management, many of the best leadership techniques can apply to our lives outside of work.

Following some leadership tips will be a good start, that may help you go a step further in your social life.

Leadership tips: How leaders do it

Being a social leader is more than just knowing there is a team, it is knowing how to cultivate trust, care, and respect. These values will create a more open atmosphere that will enable people to be more open and share their thoughts and feelings.

Tip #1: Build room for conversation and communication

A good leader is able to conduct a proper communication. Short conversations are opportunities for the crews or employees to get early feedback on how they were tackling problems. This allowed them to retain control of the solution. On the other hand, having meetings is stressful and creates pressure to the participants.

Tip #2: Acknowledge both success and failure

Good leaders always turn mistakes into catalysts for change. Besides, acknowledgement of failure provides an opportunity and a space for colleagues to encourage and inspire each other.

Tip #3: Encourage good decisions and avoid deliberation

Leaders decide. Deliberating endlessly could lead in poor choices. It is better to avoid wasting time and put forth a solution you prefer and help everyone feel ownership of that idea.

Tip #4: Help motivation to flourish

Great leaders boost their team’s motivation by setting goals and keeping personnel abreast of those goals over time. They increase delegation. They praise, encourage and recognize their people.

Tip #5: Set expectations and goals though yourself

Capt. Panagiotis Nikiteas, HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO, Maran Dry Management Inc. referred to three processes that engulf the role of a leader; envisioning (dream the future), aligning people (influence people to share the dream) and execution (actualize the dream).

Now that we have set an example of some tips for being social and some tips for being a good leader, it is time to combine both and further explain how one can be a leader in their social life.

The power of acquiring leadership tips and being socially active onboard

Acquiring social leadership skills, through relationship building and community connectivity, is more important than ever for becoming and being an effective leader. Although some people just seem to be born with impressive social skills, for others it can be a struggle.

Here’s a look at some tips that set a good example on how you can apply those things to your daily social life:

-Don’t take credit, give it

Instead of taking credit for the things that you’ve done, it is better to recognize all the good things your mates do and highlight them.

How you appear to strangers rarely matters, but your friends will see and know your generosity. When good friends win awards for their work or accomplish a life goal, sing their praises and ignore your own even if you share some of the credit.

-Take initiative in challenging times

Combining communication, trust in yourself and self-confidence will help you take initiatives and show strength in times of trouble.

The best characteristics of leaders emerge in these moments and you have an excellent opportunity to forge strong bonds with your friends when bad things happen.

-Encourage good decisions and avoid deliberation

This tip could be following the initiative you’ll take. Instead of talking about a problem with many friends and asking for everybody’s opinion, it is better to encourage good decisions and put forth the solution they prefer and help everyone feel ownership of that idea.

Trick: Start vague, get specific, then ask a vague question that’ll most likely get “yes” for an answer.

-Be yourself

Of all the things more easily said than done, “be yourself” is what matters the most. Being open and true to the people around you is the pillar of having strong relationships.