GM586 Unit 4 Ferry Allision Leader Behavior Case Example

The Morning After the Fender Piles: A Unit 4 Leader Behavior Case From an Island Ferry Service

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM586: Transformational Leadership

Unit 4 Leader Behavior Case

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The ferry service, the vessel, the manager, the crew and every time are composite and illustrative; the research cited is real.

The Allision

The ferry service runs three vessels between the mainland and two islands, with about 40 crew members. On a Tuesday in October, the vessel Kestrel approached the island terminal at 7:10 in the morning in fog, with visibility under a quarter mile, at slack tide. The mate at the controls had held his license for three years. The vessel's log and the terminal's camera timestamps show that the Kestrel came in slightly fast and wide, and its bow struck the fender piles at about two knots, a walking pace. Two piles were cracked. There were no injuries, and the vessel was undamaged beyond paint.

The crew room had a poster showing each vessel's on-time departure rate for the month. The Kestrel's 7:10 run was its tightest of the day.

The Meeting

The marine operations manager, Rhonda Teague, called an all-crew meeting for 6:00 the next morning. Under the company's safety stand-down practice, the meeting was recorded. About 30 crew members attended in person or by phone.

She opened by describing what had happened, from the log and camera record, without naming the mate. Then she said that the on-time poster in the crew room had been her idea, that she thought it had probably put pressure on the 7:10 run, and that it would come down that day. She asked the deck crew who worked the island approach to walk through it as they had seen it and to name what the fog procedure missed. A deckhand, Luis, said the procedure called for one radar watch, the mate's, and that in fog the deckhand on the bow could see nothing useful. He proposed a second radar watch in the wheelhouse during fog approaches. After a short discussion with two captains, she adopted the proposal before the meeting ended, effective that evening. She closed by saying the company's goal was safe crossings, and that a late departure in fog was not a problem she would ever criticize.

Testing the Meeting Against the Four Behaviors

Bass and Riggio group transformational leadership into four behaviors, and each can be looked for in a single meeting: whether the leader's own conduct sets a standard, whether she articulates a compelling direction, whether she invites people to question assumptions and whether she attends to individuals (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Julian Barling, Catherine Loughlin and Kevin Kelloway found that safety-specific transformational leadership predicted a stronger safety climate and fewer occupational injuries (Barling et al., 2002), which makes this meeting a fair test of the behaviors in the setting where they matter.

Idealized influence: strong. Taking public responsibility for the poster was conduct that set a standard. She did not blame the mate, and she named her own contribution first. A crew member could reasonably conclude that admitting a contributing factor was safe because the manager had just done so.

Intellectual stimulation: strong. Asking the deck crew what the procedure missed invited people closest to the work to question an established practice. The deckhand's proposal shows the invitation was real, and adopting it within the meeting showed that questions could change things quickly. Amy Edmondson found that teams with greater psychological safety engaged in more learning behavior, such as speaking up about errors and proposing changes (Edmondson, 1999). The manager's opening made that kind of speaking up more likely.

Taking down her own poster before asking the crew what the procedure missed made it safe for a deckhand to propose a change in front of the captains.

Inspirational motivation: thin. Her closing line, that safe crossings were the goal and that a late departure in fog would never be criticized, articulated a priority. But it was one sentence at the end of a meeting about an incident, and it did not describe a future the crew could work toward. The evidence supports a clear statement of values, not inspiration.

Individualized consideration: absent. The mate who was at the controls was not addressed in the meeting, which was right in public. But the recording, the log and the follow-up emails contain no sign that the manager spoke with him privately before or after. Two crew members later said that the mate took two days off and that no one from management called him. In Bass and Riggio's account, this behavior is about noticing what a particular follower needs and responding to it (Bass & Riggio, 2006), and the person with the greatest need in this case received no attention that the record shows.

The Evidence Summarized

For idealized influence, the evidence is the recorded statement taking responsibility for the poster and its removal that day. For intellectual stimulation, the evidence is the request to the deck crew and the adoption of the second radar watch, recorded in the meeting and in the next day's operating notice. For inspirational motivation, the evidence is one closing sentence. For individualized consideration, there is no evidence of contact with the mate in any source.

Limits of a Single Meeting

One meeting is a narrow sample. The manager may have called the mate in a conversation no one recorded. Inspirational motivation is usually shown over time, not in a stand-down meeting. And a recorded meeting may lead a manager to behave more carefully than usual. The verdicts apply to this meeting, not to the manager's leadership as a whole.

What the Record Suggests Next

The two strong behaviors give the manager a base to build on, and the two weak ones point to specific actions. A private conversation with the mate, even a late one, would address the absent behavior: asking how he is, what he saw that morning and what support he wants before his next fog approach. A brief follow-up to the whole crew a month later, reporting how the second radar watch has worked and naming Luis as the person who proposed it, would turn one closing sentence into a direction people could see the company following. Neither action is costly, and both would test whether the meeting was the start of a pattern or a single good morning.

Appendix: Transcript Excerpt

Manager: "The on-time poster in the crew room was my idea. I think it probably put pressure on the 7:10, and it's coming down today."

Manager: "I'd like the deck crew on the island run to walk us through the approach as you saw it. What does the fog procedure miss?"

Deckhand: "In fog the bow lookout can't see anything useful. It's just the mate on radar. We could use a second radar watch in the wheelhouse on fog approaches."

Manager: "Captains, any reason not to? Then we'll start it tonight."

References

Barling, J., Loughlin, C., & Kelloway, E. K. (2002). Development and test of a model linking safety-specific transformational leadership and occupational safety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(3), 488-496. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.3.488

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999