Wisdom from the Sea
Stories for Leaders to Navigate through Life's Turbulent Waters
By James Evanow
James Evanow, 2014
Softcover, 67 pp., $14.95
www.jamesevanow.com

I never cease to be amazed at all the tasks that must be mastered to be successful skipper. Knowing how to catch a lot of fish is certainly a big part of the job but it's not all of it. Among other things, you also have to be a knowledgeable and proficient repairman who can fix equipment that breaks down at sea. You have to be able to navigate treacherous waters, understand meteorology, global market dynamics, economics, political and regulatory climates and more. And as captain, you have to be an effective leader.

How did you learn to be a leader? Did you take note of how the skippers you worked for handled things? Did you watch the way they dealt with crew members? How did they help you develop your leadership style when you finally became a captain?

Well, James Evanow, who boasts 24 years as a sea captain, explores the concept of leadership in his book "Wisdom from the Sea." In it, he uses his experiences at sea and relates them to leadership and life skills. Evanow's commercial fishing background informs his work today as a speaker who teaches corporate leaders how to communicate persuasively, build trust and become a strong leader that people want to follow.

In his introduction, Evanow says that he's written this book "using sea stories as anecdotes, in order to bring awareness about how we think and act, who we are and how we treat each other."

Evanow writes that people should lead "from a place of compassion, integrity, empathy and self control." That would seem to fly in the face of the stereotypical skipper who routinely screams at his crew.

NF's June 1998 cover story spotlighted skippers who weren't afraid to use a little lung power to get the attention of their crew.In our June 1998 issue, we did a cover story on loud and proud skippers. "Everybody knows that, when space is tight, hours are long, money swims and somebody is moving too slowly, the skipper's going to be on the giving end of a blood-red dressing down," the story notes.

The screaming is just "part of the business," it continues. "And just as much a part of the business is laughing later — sometimes not until years later — about the time so-and-so lost his cool and left his crew crying like babies after an hour-long tirade."

In his early days as a skipper, Evanow may have been a screamer as well. "When I was younger, it was very difficult for me to be able to come from a position of positive leadership," he writes. "I would get very upset and angry with people when something would go wrong. I wouldn't be held accountable and, when I look back on this time in my life, I realize that many of my actions were based on what I believed I was supposed to do."

Evanow says he eventually realized that he acted that way because of what he'd seen other people do and how they reacted to situations. However, he decided to try and learn to think for himself how he wanted to act. Today he advocates developing what he calls emotional intelligence — in other words, your ability to recognize and deal with your emotions in a difficult situation and respond in a logical and controlled manner.

Interestingly, Evanow writes about how it wasn't always easy to hire solid deckhands to become part of a well-trained and efficient crew. Even so, he advocates interviewing prospective crew members properly to ensure that you hire the right people and select them for the right reasons.

I don't know if Evanow's book will help you become a better skipper. But it could make you think about what your leadership style is, and it offers up some ideas that you could add to your leadership arsenal.