
Toxic Leader – Toxic Culture: The Death of the Bow Mariner Part 2

Maria M Bridge – bad attitude, poor communications
Confusion between rate of turn and rudder indicators, cultural insensitivity, the master’s insufficient English, a non-functioning AIS and VTS operators that did not react to the developing situation were key factors in the 12 July 2009 grounding of the Italian-registered chemical tanker Maria M says the Swedish Transport Agency report on the incident.
It was not a good start to the master’s first day in command of the vessel.
If you want to know why toxic leaders are like green wallpaper, check out the Splash24/7 article, how many rolls of green wallpaper does your company have? here
Recently an account from a former master of a close encounter that under other circumstances could have led to a collision sent MAC scrambling to Google to find out what information was available on toxic leadership at sea resulting in an accident. There were precisely five results, out of a potential of 132,000 hits on maritime accidents and of those on the top of the list was MAC’s post on the Maria M incident and the IMO model course on leadership and teamwork. That drilling into the remaining three results produced nothing on maritime accidents and toxic leadership suggests that it is an under-researched area of maritime safety.
A member of MAC’s LinkedIn maritime accident investigation group provided this account of a close call:
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