Captain Bligh and Leadership: A Case Study

"Captain William Bligh micromanag[ed] the HMS Bounty crew and wanted everyone to know he was the boss, which was more important to him than efficiency. To compound the problem, he considered maximum control as a means to achieve efficiency. As a result, everything went wrong. The crew finally had enough, mutinied, and cast Captain Bligh and eighteen crewmembers adrift in a lifeboat. Without charts or navigation interments, they sailed the open boat 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony, Timor, near Java. This outstanding achievement is only possible with a team united behind a common goal and the use of comfort zone navigation, the art of using intuitive forces where facts are not available. . . .Aboard the Bounty, Captain Bligh's priority was total control. In the lifeboat things were different, priority was survival, or get the job done. Survival automatically unites people into a team where team members are willing to listen to others opinions, free of social prejudice."