COVID-19 has caused an exponential rise in leadership and management challenges across the world which we’ll all be reading about and dissecting for years to come. When we return to work, we’ll enter a world quite different than the one we lived in before.

One thing though, that will definitely not be different, is that people will remain people. Humans will continue to react in unexpected, unpredictable, and sometimes explosive ways. If you want to count on one thing, count on that.

A particularly explosive story managed to rise above the rest in the tornado paced news cycle of the past few weeks, brought to us from a tiny little island only 210 square miles wide in the far western Pacific Ocean. Guam.

Did you know Guam is the farthest west U.S. territory? It’s 3,950 miles from Hawaii!! This is an important detail we’re going to come back to..

On March 31st, the San Francisco Chronicle released an exclusive article titled “Captain of aircraft carrier with growing coronavirus outbreak pleads for help from Navy“.

Highlights:

• The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear aircraft carrier carrying 4,000 sailors, raced to dock in Guam with 100+ sailors infected with the Corona virus
• Captain Brett Crozier did not have orders to allow his sailors to disembark the ship so they all remained onboard in close quarters within a highly infective environment
• Capt. Crozier appealed to his superiors but did not get the response he needed in time to ensure the safety of his crew
• The captain took matters into his own hands and urgently appealed via an unclassified letter on Mar 30th to the Navy requesting the evacuation of 90% of the crew from the ship in order to stop the spread of the disease
• The letter (linked in the article above) was then leaked to the Chronicle, potentially purposefully

The letter itself is worth a read for any aspiring business writers. It’s clear, concise, and to the point: Get my crew off this ship. On its face, this is leadership in the face of crisis. As likely expected, it got a major media reaction. And as many of us know, reality (and humans) are not so simple.

You see, the Navy has a very specific way of doing things. And when Capt. Crozier sent his letter over an unclassified channel, he broke protocol and the chain of command. The Navy Secretary seemingly had no choice. He relieved Capt. Crozier of his command three days later on April 2nd in a brief press conference.

What Capt. Crozier did to prioritize the safety of his crew was heroic. Full stop. He certainly must have known that letter would be leaked and he certainly must have known he would lose his job.

What would you have done? On his way off the ship, his crew cheered and chanted his name. The video leaked on Twitter. The Navy didn’t like that.

Navy Secretary Thomas Modly flew 8,000 miles to Guam from Washington to address the USS Roosevelt crew. 8,000 miles! 3,950 miles past Hawaii!! And then he trashed Capt. Crozier! A trip which might have cost American taxpayers $243k..

Guess what happened to the audio of his address? It got leaked to the media. Then things went truly haywire:

As an aside, Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson’s name is Tweed. What an awesome name! And his excellent OpEd in the New York Times can be found here titled “Captain Crozier Is a Hero”.

Where does the story end?

Humans! People! What a chain of events.

In 2012, a psychologist won the Nobel Prize in Economics. His name is Daniel Kahneman, author of the book Thinking, Fast And Slow, the research summary for which he won the award. It effectively details human decision making, how the brain forms thoughts, and why we make decisions. The old reliable Wikipedia summary can be found here for those less literarily inclined. In summary, there are two thought systems which influence our decision making:

• System 1 (S1): fast, instinctive and emotional
• System 2 (S2): slower, more deliberative, and more logical

Wonder which system drives strong leadership decisions?

Wonder which system prompts an 8,000 mile journey to Guam from Washington D.C. during a global pandemic to rant at U.S.S. Roosevelt sailors for 15 minutes, take no questions, and call their former captain & leader “stupid”?

We can all learn some lessons from the real life characters in this story. Hard decisions require deliberation, logic, and bravery. Emotions can get the best of anyone during heightened stress. When there are no easy decisions, slow things down and think.

It’s all we can do. Crazy times. Thank you Captain Crozier.

A great recap of this timeline can be listened to via NYT’s The Daily Podcast here