Serving the nation at sea is a dangerous business. Mariners are constantly at the mercy of the weather and the elements, and the inside of a warship is no safe haven. Sailors stand watch and even sleep next to highly pressurized piping, dangerous machinery, and heavy ordnance. An improperly operated valve or a sloppy maintenance procedure could be the difference between a good night’s sleep and extreme danger. Add to all this the perils and horrors of combat and the dangers of the naval profession are plain to see. Only the skilled crew of mariners, who knows how to operate their ship safely and use their weapons effectively, will win the high-end fight and come home safe.
Isolated from the rest of the world, a crew at sea has no one to rely on but each other. The only comfort amidst the danger is trust among shipmates. Without a profound understanding and respect for one another, that trust could never develop in a crew. As the maritime services contemplate the idea of facing the first combat action at sea in decades, only the crews that invest the time and energy to develop family ties will be able to operate safely, overcome the adversity of combat, and win.
The Importance of Family Bonds
Family ties and bonds of trust are part and parcel of the human experience. We were evolved to value social connections with others to deal with the danger of the prehistoric world. At the biological level, our brains produce oxytocin, which encourages us to develop bonds of trust and friendship with people close to us by making us feel comfortable and happy when we are around them.1 This extends to crews at sea. If humans feel they are part of a family grouping, they will develop the type of trust that allows them to face down danger and accomplish great things together. This is true for mariners who face a fiducial level of danger every day, and even more so for the teams that must serve in combat together.
In combat, we put our lives in the hands of the people to our right and to our left. If that trust is absent—or worse, if members of the crew actively distrust one another—then fear and self-preservation take over. Without trust, even the best technology will be useless for overcoming the paralysis of fear and the inefficacy of self-centeredness within the crew.
In the past, crews would socialize together off the ship quite often. That bonding experience gave them a sense of camaraderie and helped them to develop family ties that transferred to life onboard the ship. That is how past generations were able to fight and win wars at sea.
Morale Degraded
Young sailors are isolated from one another more than ever, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem. This has resulted in an ongoing morale crisis. The active-duty military saw a statistical increase in the number of suicides between 2015 and 2020, with a 25 percent jump at the end of calendar year 2020. The past few years have seen high-profile media stories involving troubled sailors taking their own lives and the lives of others. As recent as 2018, military members who were surveyed—especially junior enlisted members of the Navy and Marine Corps—said they experienced recent serious psychological distress at higher rates than the overall U.S. population.
Modern technology is driving part of this trend. In contrast to the sailors of the past who would frequently socialize together off duty, many today turn to social media for entertainment and a sense of escape from their demanding and stressful jobs. Ask any division officer: most will know all too well the type of sailor who uses most of his free time off the ship playing video games alone in the barracks. This is concerning, as excessive use of social media can degrade mental health by leading to feelings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
In addition to technology-driven isolation, modern attitudes play a part. Today, many sailors view their work as “just a job” rather than a profession shared by a community called to serve a higher cause. As former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman puts it,
Naval service has until recently been seen as an elite calling. Now many see it as just another trade. The bureaucracy has done away with officers’ and chiefs’ clubs, as well as bachelor officers’ quarters. Except for senior officers, no one wants to live on base. Sailors commute to work like any civilian and socialize as far as possible from senior officers. Naval service when not deployed is today little different from working in the Postal Service.
Navy crews and their families were once tight-knit groups that lived together on base, socialized with one another when not at sea, and shared in the difficulties of deployment together. While many Navy communities do still share strong bonds, they are the exception rather than the rule. And while it would be wrong to reduce completely the cause of the Navy’s mental health problems to too much social media or a lack of community, something is clearly wrong that Navy leaders need to fix.
The Task of the Maritime Leader
Effective leadership will be the difference between the crews that pull together like families and those that do not. It is a matter of life and death, especially if crews are called to fight in combat soon. Therefore, effective leaders must focus on four things: 1) Knowing the people they lead; 2) Mentoring their people; 3) Fostering social ties; and 4) Getting care for their people.
Leaders Know the People They Lead
Leaders must get to know the people who make up their divisions, departments, and crews. They must make it their business to know thoroughly the personal details, struggles, hopes, and fears of their subordinates. “Get to know your people” sounds simple enough, but it becomes difficult when competing priorities vie for leaders’ time and attention. Excellent leaders actively strive to put interaction with subordinates at the top of their priority list. Only then do strong family bonds begin to develop between leaders and their subordinates.
Leaders Mentor Their Sailors
Taking the time to mentor sailors is imperative. Truly excellent leaders will nurture the people under them and guide their career progression. They will encourage their subordinates to seek out new training and qualification opportunities and will take on risk for themselves to devolve more responsibilities down to the lowest levels possible. Practicing mission command at the micro level by delegating authority is a form of mentorship, whereby a commander provides intent, allows subordinates to make decisions, and then provides feedback after the dust settles. It demonstrates presumption of good intent and thus builds bonds of trust from the bottom up.
Leaders Foster Close-Knit Ties
In an environment where sailors are becoming more isolated, maritime leaders must actively work to bring their crews together. Commands must be even more creative than ever at devising ways to socialize because of the need to maintain safe distancing to protect from COVID-19. Leaders should normalize socializing outside of work and duty, especially for crewmembers’ families. Some crews have had success with outdoor burger burns, sporting events, and other crew get-togethers to foster greater morale and esprit de corps. Midlevel leaders play a large role in off-ship socializing. Junior officers can work with their chiefs to organize division events on their own, to get young sailors out of their barracks room. This can mean risk for senior leaders, but they should encourage this, and teach junior leaders how to comport themselves appropriately with their subordinates. When being together outside of work becomes normalized and occurs regularly, the crew will feel less isolated from one another and develop the family bonds they will need to succeed at sea.
Leaders Get Their Subordinates the Care They Need
Finally, leaders must care for their subordinates like they care for members of their own families. This means that when sailors display warning signs of mental illness or distress, leaders must act with compassion and decisiveness to get help. It can be tempting to dismiss off-color mental health remarks as harmless, but leaders must take them seriously. Just as important, leaders must shut down any complaints about sailors who decides to take advantage of mental health services. They must work to create a culture where mental health care is encouraged by everyone. Leaders must therefore work hard to dispel myths and taboos by educating their crews on the benefits of mental health care. In the process of doing so, family bonds will develop because the crew knows their leaders care about them.
When Crews Come Together
Advantage At Sea states, “Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen remain our most important resource for prevailing in long-term competition.” We often say that our advantage over our adversaries is our people. We need to treat those people accordingly. To that end, we must recognize that building family ties and bonds of trust among crews is the highest responsibility of maritime leaders.
Only crews that treat one another like they would treat their brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters will be the crews that fire on all cylinders and perform with excellence under stress and danger. Crewmembers who feel trusted and heard—who know their leaders take the time to get to know them, mentor them, and care for them—will rise to any occasion. These crews enjoy high morale and encourage each other to get help when it is needed. They protect and look out for one another on shore and act with great courage at sea—even in combat.
- Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last (London: Penguin Publishing Group, 2014), 104.
