Career Opportunities

The High-Tech Career Handbook

O' Captain, My Captain

October 12, 2001

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Throughout our lives, both personally and professionally, we look for a captain; someone to guide us through the storms and bring us safely to home port again. We want this captain to be ever vigilant, ever watchful and skillful beyond measure; someone to protect us and automatically know when the ship is off-course and in danger. Sometimes, though, serving under such a captain, either on-board or in your high-tech career can lead you to underestimate your own skills.

Crossing the Unknown Sea

In David Whyte's book Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, he points out one issue involved with the concept of "captaincy", when the small tour boat he is working on nearly runs aground.

"The great irony was that in [the captain's] all-knowing alertness, we had allowed [him] to lull us subtly into a lack of responsibility at the very core. We were alert as crew members, but [he] had so filled his role as captain to capacity that we ourselves had become incapacitated in one crucial area. We had given up our own inner sense of captaincy. Somewhere inside us we had come to the decision that ultimate responsibility lay elsewhere."

You are the captain

While you can, and should, follow a good captain, you should also remember that you are a captain in your own right. You have as much responsibility for the success of your job and your career as anyone else. You cannot ignore a problem, hoping that the captain, or your peers will notice and protect you from it. It is through the practice of your own responsibility that everyone around you remains safe.

As you can see, this concept of captaincy has applications far beyond the high seas. Every company, every department, every independent contractor has one or more "ships" they must guide and protect. It is up to you to see the problem and address it without direct orders from your captain. When you act as your own captain, those around you will follow suit. They will become even better at what they do.

Of course, the same scenario can occur when there is no captain, or worse, an ineffectual one. Too many times the crew is content to let the ship founder on the rocks even though they will go down with it as surely as the captain. Shouldn't you at least make a grab for the tiller and steer the ship until you and your crewmates can abandon ship? There are times when you need to become a captain to both yourself and others in order to survive. Even if your project is sinking, you need to maintain your stability so you can make a safe transfer to the next step in your career.

Everyone a captain

Don't hesitate to cultivate captaincy in those around you, either. Instead of taking the entire weight of command, build a team that can carry responsibility on its own shoulders. This allows you to concentrate on the issues that truly require your attention instead of wallowing in the morass of micro-management. Together, as captain and crew, you can achieve goals that none of you could do separately.

You cannot fear your peers. You must embrace their skills, their talents and their abilities. It is through these people that you will achieve your success. You have to have the ability to call on them, and they on you, when problems grow beyond the ability of one person to solve them. Letting someone else face the problem alone is the height of professional cowardice. Worse yet, if they fail, your work will still be effected, and possibly, damaged, due to your willful inattention. There are no winners or losers in your professional life. Too often, when one person loses, everyone does.

No one, regardless of their position in a company, should willfully abandon their attention and let anyone, even the best captain, carry the entire burden of responsibility alone. You must exert your own innate abilities without being told what to do each step of the way. Your professional life will depend on your ability to be your own captain first. Only then can you effectively captain others.

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