My wife Francine, youngest daughter Veronica, and I just returned from summer vacation. 

It was an amazing trip.  We flew into Rome and stayed there a few days.  We then took a 12-day Mediterranean cruise that ended in Venice.  We stayed there a few days and ended our vacation in one of our favorite cities, Paris. 

We walked hours and hours each day and saw the most amazing things.  We returned home physically tired but mentally refreshed and recharged.

The cruise was good but there were surprises. 

Normally, we visit the Caribbean but we decided to try the Mediterranean and visit places we had never seen before.  Because the ship left from Civitavecchia, the port of Rome and was calling at other ports in Italy, as well as Monaco, Greece and Croatia we expected it to be very multilingual…after all, our last Caribbean cruise made announcements in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.  You can imagine our surprise when the only language used on this ship was English.

Most of the ships we have sailed on had Scandinavian, Dutch or Italian Captains.  This one was from the UK and when he addressed his passengers he went on and on and on! 

But the strangest part was what he said; all good news was delivered in the first person, i.e. “me”.  Any negative news, such as a missed port or a late departure was delivered in the third person, i.e. “we”.  Francine and I noticed that his written communications to passengers were delivered exactly the same way.  At first, we thought it was just us, but it wasn’t.  We overheard other passengers remarking on the same thing.

We probably won’t sail with this line again simply because, although the ship was supposed to be top of the line, the service did not reflect that.  You could see that there was tension amongst the crew. 

It made us wonder if the captain’s “me” vs. “we” management style affected his crew.  Could the crew’s negative attitudes be a result of never being given credit by their leader for the positive things that the passengers experienced? Real leaders share responsibility with their crew or even give all credit to them when things go well. Likewise, a real leader takes responsibility when things aren’t working out as intended.  This Captain did neither of those things and his team suffered as a result.  Management is all about “we” and seldom about “me”.