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The voyage of the HMS Bounty
Before the beginning of the voyage an event occurred that would linger in the minds of the crew, the flogging to death of a deserter from another ship through a punishment known as flogging round the fleet. Flogging round the fleet consisted of each ship sending its master of arms out in a small boat and flogging the disciplined sailor. Each ship would flog the man ten times, so it was conceivable a sailor could receive up to 1,000 lashes. This event eerily foreshadowed the future events of the cruise. The final outcome for such a punishment was usually death. A horrified midshipman, Roger Byam questioned Bligh on why they just didn't hang him, and he replied, "Waste no sympathy on rascals of that stripe, our law is stern but it has authority of centuries. And it has grown more humane with time." This answer by Bligh was made with a trace of regret.
The voyage from Portsmouth to Tahiti was no easy matter, it was for the time period a voyage of danger, and extremely long and tedious. Storms were frequent at sea, and the danger to the crew from the natives of the islands that they would visit was not to be discounted. Disease was still a big killer of ship crews, and the meager rations available to seaman did nothing to help combat malnutrition or scurvy, a notorious killer of the time. The lack of port visits meant that the crew of the Bounty could be on the ship for over two years. Psychologically studies have shown that after 90 days of continual stress without a break can lead to mental problems, and it can only be imagined what a period of long stress could have done to the crew of the Bounty.
The voyage began with fair winds and seas, but was not to last. Off the coast of Spain a huge wave badly damaged the Bounty. It destroyed the ships liquor supply, the bread supply and crushed three of the large boats used by the ship to take people ashore. Liquor was an integral part of the sailors' life, the diet on board the ship was poor, and alcohol was a key supplement8. Captain Bligh immediately put in to Tenerife, and had his crew work round the clock for five days to repair the ship, but during those five days he did nothing to restore the crew's alcohol stocks, or to replace the bread. By focusing only on the mission and not on the people Bligh began to lose the support of the men he commanded.
However Bligh did manage to get his hands on some fresh supplies, but unfortunately the meat was horribly rotten. The crew not surprisingly complained about the quality of the food and refused to eat the "fresh" beef. Captain Bligh took this defiance as a sign of mutiny, and ordered that the men eat the beef. They refused and threw it overboard, showing Captain Bligh defiance and resentment. The loss of the crew's bread was a very unfortunate act; it led to Captain Bligh having to reduce their rations in order to ensure that they kept food. Rations were cut to 2/3 the daily allowance, which the men were willing to accept, yet Captain Bligh did not cut his meals, and even worse, continued to choose the best cuts of meat for his table. This violates a key principle of leadership in that a leader must not ask his constituents to make a sacrifice he is not willing to make9. By not sharing their burden, Bligh opened a sore that did not go away, only festered until it boiled over.
Another mistake made by Captain Bligh was loaning Fletcher Christian money to allow him to live at his gentlemanly status while in port. This money, while insignificant at the time, later became crucial as Captain Bligh managed to remind Fletcher Christian about how much money he owed the Captain in every argument. This violates a premise of leadership, if not ethics in a superior officer loaning to a subordinate10. By doing this he forced Fletcher Christian into a position of subservience and debt, which can create trouble in the future for both parties.
Arrival in Tahiti
After reaching Tahiti William Bligh made many grievous errors. The men of the Bounty were given liberal shore privileges, a wise decision, but not without consequences. The crew soon made friends among the Polynesians, and the Polynesians soon gave their English friends gifts of their own stock. These gifts included pigs, pearls and other valuables. Bligh instantly had them confiscated and added to the ships store, greatly angering the men who received these gifts, after all they were very valuable, which the poorly paid sailors could have used very much.
The second bad decision was to not adequately prepare the men for the return to England. Tahiti was a time of great freedom for the men, they were able to come and go as they pleased, and received a taste of living like real men with their individuality. Many men were concerned about the return to England and a life of hardness and struggle. If he had been cognizant of their concerns Bligh would have worked to assuage their feelings; instead he blindly prepared for his return voyage. Bligh's judgement of people and interactions with them was not of the highest caliber. He mistakenly believed that what he thought was kindness was seen by others as charity. By unknowingly making these unwise decisions he exposed his greatest character fault, an inability to read character. Some people respond well to criticism, others do not, and it is a leader's job to determine what is best to use in each situation. Bligh was unable to do this, and it later caused him the biggest disgrace of his life.
Throughout the voyage Bligh employed a discipline regime vastly different from most of the Royal Navy. It was common for a naval commander to have between 20-40% of the crew flogged at some point throughout the cruise, as a means of keeping discipline. Bligh had around 10% of the crew flogged. Instead Bligh publicly criticized his crew, not caring who heard his personal attacks. These attacks extended to the officers, who as gentleman were above public reproach. Bligh publicly undermined his officers, and furthermore, insulted their ego in a forum that removed their pride. Officers as previously stated were gentleman, and were above the status of ordinary sailors. However Captain Bligh had an officer flogged, a punishment unheard of in the Royal Navy. By flogging a gentleman he reduced his status to that of the people he was supposed to lead, and furthermore showed that Bligh was losing his touch with reality. Another problem was that Bligh genuinely cared for his men, and therefore didn't believe in flogging them11. The only concern the crew had was that this was very uncommon for a Captain to show a deep concern for them. In many ways Captain Bligh treated his men like children, which was an affront to many, and made the crew question Bligh's authority over them.
The last straw on the return voyage seemed to be Captain Bligh's obsession with saving water for the breadfruit plants while cutting the amount of freshwater available to the crew. Bligh even went to the extent of mounting the water in a cannon in the rigging so that the thirsty individual had to climb the ropes to get a drink of water. Each man was only allowed two drinks per watch, and a watch lasted four hours. In the excruciating heat of the South Pacific this became unbearable. As a result three thirsty sailors stole a few coconuts from the ships store, figuring that they would not be missed. However Captain Bligh found out about their theft and promptly called the crew together and interrogated them on their loss. When no one was willing to step forward Fletcher Christian assumed full responsibility. Suddenly the second in command of the HMS Bounty received the full brunt of Captain Bligh's anger and insecurity. He was publicly insulted and berated in front of the crew. Fletcher's anger was so great that he attempted to make a makeshift raft and leave the Bounty. When his raft was unable to work, he decided to take a chance and led a mutiny on the Bounty.
William Bligh awoke to a pistol in his face and an angry crew sick of his tirades. The crew was split in half regarding their feelings towards the mutiny. All in all it was a hasty affair, dreamed of in the middle of the night. Fletcher Christian did the only possible option; he set Captain Bligh adrift in a whaleboat and wished him the best. No charts were provided only a compass and enough provisions to last a week.
The true test of William Bligh's leadership was the 3600-mile voyage from the islands of Tahiti to the Dutch colony in Indonesia12. Braving storms, angry natives, and dehydration, the brave 19 men cast off of the Bounty managed to persevere in the face of great adversity. Captain Bligh admirably maintained discipline and managed to hold together the crew through huge turmoil and danger. It was in this time period that Bligh used participative leadership, he involved his men in the decision making process, and more importantly demonstrated his willingness to share the burdens of suffering with his men, a key difference from when he was on the Bounty13. Bligh had his men participate in leadership, involving them in the decision making process, guaranteeing their trust on the long voyage home. Had William Bligh used this style of leadership during the voyage of the Bounty the crisis and eventual mutiny may have been averted.
Breakdown in Leadership
Where did the leadership on the HMS Bounty go wrong? William Bligh and Fletcher Christian were two extremely capable leaders, but when forced to serve together in close quarters their shortcomings became glaringly apparent. A prominent English psychologist has theorized that Captain suffered from various mental conditions which while not incapacitating, contributed greatly to the mutiny. He had an overbearing self-confidence and self-righteousness, which meant that to compensate and preserve his position he had to degrade his younger officers to ensure his self-confidence and self-esteem14. If Bligh had maintained discipline through the lash instead of personal insults it is very likely that the mutiny could have been avoided. Added to this was his sensitivity to criticism and inability to take constructive criticism, which meant that he had a self-confidence issue and had a need to be reassured.
Captain Bligh was also extremely prone to what is known as executive stress, or stress from adversity. Many leaders suffer through this, which is why it is necessary for a leader to be able to refresh his creative energies. The small ship and lack of young officers (managers) on the Bounty meant that Captain Bligh had few opportunities to refresh his creative energies, and over 27,000 miles this was a recipe for disaster. His fears and psychological problems only magnified in the small confines of the HMS Bounty.
Fletcher Christian on the other hand was an extremely sensitive man who did not respond well to public criticism. Furthermore he grew up in a lifestyle that placed little to no hardship on him, and consequently he had a hard time adapting to severe hardship. He also went through periods of extreme detachment from others, from which he would emerge very charismatic and jovial. These severe mood swings made it hard for the crew to correctly gauge his feelings, and made it even harder for the other officers and Captain Bligh to work with him. These mood swings may have fatally contributed to the disastrous chain of events that led to the mutiny on that fateful night.
Theories of Military and Naval Leadership
A prominent Air Force general who commanded all NATO forces in Germany wrote a text published for the National Defense University containing his observations of leadership. He listed 20 key fundamentals on leadership, and they are, trust, must be a good teacher, rarely be a problem solver, communicator, manage time and use it effectively, trust their intuition, must be willing to remove people for cause, take care of their people, must provide a vision, subordinate their ego and ambition to the goals of the unit, must know how to run meetings, understand the decision-making process, visible and approachable, must have a sense of humor, decisive but patiently decisive, introspective, open-minded, establish and maintain high standards and dignity, and exude integrity. The fundamentals highlighted in bold are the areas where Captain Bligh fell extremely short in leadership, and contributed to the mutiny.
The first place where Captain Bligh fell down is on being able to provide a vision. He was able to explain the mission, but he was unable to provide a vision throughout the whole voyage. This failure was catastrophic. Tied into this is Captain Bligh's failure to subordinate his naked ambition to the goals of the voyage, it almost became as much a voyage about Captain Bligh as the breadfruit delivery to the West Indies. A leader must never allow the vision of the mission to be lost.
Leaders must be very visible as well, and unfortunately Captain Bligh was only visible when he was out to publicly berate the crew. This was a detrimental way of being visible and created disharmony and fear among the crew. Their resentment grew, and in the end he was no longer welcome on his own ship. William Bligh did not possess a sense of humor, which meant he was unable to share his mistakes to show the humor of the situation he was in. The Royal Army and Navy have a tradition of trading places between the enlisted men and the officers on Boxing Day. If this had been done for a day perhaps a great level of stress and anger could have been let off in a peaceful and constructive way.
A good officer is open-minded to his chiefs and leading petty officers (sergeants) for advice on matters15. A good Commanding Officer or division commander will listen to suggestions made by the people who actually do the work, who knows his trade better, a cobbler, or someone who has read about it a little? Therefore on some issues it was imperative that Captain Bligh listen to his officers, they weren't trying to make him look like a fool. For instance Captain Bligh sent the ships carpenter ashore to cut some wood for planks to fix some of the small boats. When the wood Captain Bligh wanted was unfit for the task he accused the carpenter of disobeying orders when he used another wood. Had Captain Bligh been willing to listen he would have learned something new and gotten the end result he wanted.
During the voyage Captain Bligh did not maintain and keep high standards of dignity and pride for the men of the Bounty. In fact many of his actions seemed to detract from the overall dignity of the men through his tirades and his incessant, almost zealous drive to get the breadfruit to the West Indies. Once again the idea of "Mission First, People Always" comes into play, and although he worked hard to make the mission he didn't work hard to keep the dignity of his men. At times they seemed to be worth less than the breadfruit plants they were transporting to the West Indies. By not preserving dignity he lost a vocal minority of his constituents and was subject to assassination through the mutiny.
Because of these failures in leadership the mission of the HMS Bounty failed. It wasn't due to any external threat, such as bad weather, war, or attacks from natives, the mission failed because the leadership elements on the HMS Bounty were not in a symbiotic relationship. If there had been a clear exchange of ideas from the second-in-command and the leading enlisted man to Captain Bligh there would have been a way to reduce the tensions onboard the ship. An idea that General Frank, commander of the United States VII Corps in Operation Desert Storm expressed that a good commander replaces those officers who while good officers break the harmony and cohesion of a unit. Captain Bligh failed to replace Fletcher Christian when he became part of the problem instead of being a solution to the problem. This doomed the voyage to failure.
Did Captain Bligh employ directive or abusive leadership? Directive leadership is a leadership with autocracy one man makes the decision-making process and there is no discussion. Bligh definitely operated under directive leadership, there were very few questions of his crew or his officers. Captain Bligh did not fully understand where the line between directive and abusive lay, and unfortunately he crossed into abusive leadership. Was he a particularly mean-spirited man who abused people physically? The answer is an ambiguous not exactly. Most of his degradation of his sailors and officers was seen by him as nothing and not abusive, but for his crew unaccustomed to this kind of criticism the attacks were horrific abuses of dignity. Many great naval historians have said leadership and mutiny aside; Captain Bligh may have been one of the best seamen ever after his epic 3600-mile voyage in the open boat. This demonstrates that he was an effective leader after being forced to interact with his crew in both positive and negative ways at the same time.
Conclusion
Many lessons can be learned from the case study of the Mutiny on the Bounty and indeed the texts from the Concepts in Leadership class. The ideas expressed in the texts include the concept of value-based leadership; prejudice, integrity and leading through persuasion are demonstrated by the case study of the Mutiny on the Bounty. In the case study the theories of leadership that the class has learned are applied, both negatively and positively to allow a greater understanding of the idea of what effective leadership is. After all, lessons are often learned the hard way, but the case studies examined by the Concepts in Leadership class will hopefully prevent the class from having to learn their lessons the hard way. Mutiny on the Bounty provides the lessons of how to interact with subordinates in a way that maximizes the potential of all the constituents.