76: Torpedoing the Commander of the USS Roosevelt: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

In a four page letter dated March 30, US Navy Captain Brett Crozier said he urgently needed to offload some of the over 4,000 deployed sailors on board the nuclear powered aircraft the USS Theodore Roosevelt to quarantine in Guam to stop the spread of the coronavirus. That letter, leaked to the press, appeared to seal Captain Crozier's fate. He was relieved of his command this week on the podcast the Chain, the chain of comm. And the chain of events that define leadership in a time of a global war on a virus. The origin of the phrase between the devil and the deep blue sea is nautical terminology. The devil is the name for the seam in the upper deck planking next to a ship's waterways. There's little space to get at this particular seam, making it a difficult and awkward job. It's also an idiom meaning a person faced with two dangerous alternatives. Last week, that person was U.S. navy Captain Brett Crozier. His alternatives? The Devil follow orders. The deep blue sea Defy them. The Navy captain chose the sea when he wrote an anguished and widely publicized letter this week aimed at his superiors in a plea for help for his sailors after more than 100 of the crew members were were sickened from a coronavirus outbreak on the carrier he commanded. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die, said Crozier in his letter. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset, our sailors. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Moley relieved Captain Crozier of his command during a press briefing late Thursday at the Defense Department. Moldly cited Crozier for showing extremely poor judgment.

I did not come to this decision lightly. I have no doubt in my mind that Captain Crozier did what he thought was in the best interest of the safety and well being of his crew. Unfortunately, it did the opposite. It unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our sailors and Marines. With no plan to address those concerns, the letter was sent over non secure unclassified email. And it wasn't just sent up the chain of command. It was sent and copied to a broad array of other people.

At the same briefing. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday said the Navy expects commanders to handle matters calmly and emotionally. Note that I'm coming back to that line later. More critical was exposing the US aircraft in a weakened state to adversaries. Okay, now the chain of command in the military, it's the line of authority and responsibility from orders that pass in a succession of leaders until the Order is executed. Captain Crozier simply did not follow it. Now, many people have vilified his choice to write that letter and send it to multiple people. And it was also alleged that he did not send it to a supervisor. Others regard his decision, however, to risk his command, his job, for the health and safety of his crew, as heroic. Now, I have an opinion on this matter, and it's a strong one. My opinion stems from serving over 16 years as a military spouse. I was a captain's wife, and I'm using the term serving intentionally. One serves, we all serve. So, in a military family, I am intimately familiar with the concept of an enforceable chain of command. I also have an 18 year old daughter who was recently admitted to a service academy. And now I head a unit of people who grew up with a military mindset and with military rule. So this news story was definitely a topic at our quarantined dinner table. However, I am also someone with decades of public relations and media experience and my bailiwick. If you listen to this podcast, you know it's spotting the sea change in culture when it comes to the media. If I spot something on the horizon, a trend, a piece of news, a choice that was made in public that signals a shift in how a leader manages an organization and their communication efforts, well, I sound the alarm. The story of Captain Crozier is less about breaking the chain of command and more about the public's tolerance of doing so. The firing sends a signal that leaders will face repercussions if they speak up about problems. Now, that's one side. However, the public's response from the front lines of social media is solidly in his corner. This signals a new way of looking at the status quo. The public, the online public, they won't stand for it. All the people who stand on the other side of Crozier's decision, the people, the Navy brass, the people who deride him for what he did when he wrote that letter, take notice of the public backlash and take notice that it is an indication of dysfunction in the traditional sense of the chain of command. When someone is far up the chain, it might be an indication that they are too far a distance from what is happening on the ground level. That's where the groundswell happens, and that's where public opinion is made and swayed. Why do so many sailors and veterans find it plausible that Captain Crozier was getting the brush off from all of his bosses? Well, because. Could it be that it was likely that what he said was true? Yes, Crozier has his detractors. You see them quoted in print and interviewed on the news and likely there is much more to both sides of the story. But if you read the letter out of the Secretary of the Navy about why he was let go, you will notice that there was a lot, and I mean a lot of detail. This is a new working theory that I have that I've noticed that has popped up in these weeks of the coronavirus. When there is a leader, when there's an organization, when there's a big organization that is all coming down on one person, that David and Goliath aspect to a news story, well, it never works out in favor of Goliath. Take the Amazon story. When all the might and muscle of Amazon was was directed towards one striking employee at an Amazon facility in New York. David and Goliath is the new type of leadership. You want to follow it closely. Mobley said that Crozier led with too much emotion. It's very easy for someone to say in the military culture. The House Armed Services Committee leadership released a joint statement criticizing Moley for the decision, and retired Admiral Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said leaving Crozier of command was a really bad decision. Editor's note I met Admiral Mullen in 2011 when he congratulated my daughter, the aforementioned future military academy student, as a third grader when she won the Armed Services YMCA National Student Art Contest. She was the grand prize winner and I have admired Admiral Mullen ever since. So the question in 2020 no longer appears to be about breaking the chain of command, but breaking a set of rules that are not congruent with public opinion. It's if the first few weeks of the coronavirus crisis has shown us anything, it's that leaders who lead with altruism and humanity first are the ones who are often lauded for their choices. Leaders who put the status quo or profit over people are the ones who are likely to receive the harshest blowback. But look what would motivate a captain with a U.S. naval Academy education, more than 25 years in the Navy, torpedo his own career? Perhaps it's living by an edict from St. Augustine. Unjust law is no law at all. As history shows, there is a tolerance for some laws that need to be broken for a cause. Rosa Parks, William Wallace, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Oskar Schindler. It was once written, one has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. That was an Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr. S letter from Birmingham Jail an important piece of writing from the 20th century. But here we are in the 21st century in a time of technology where moral codes and laws are frequently discussed. Sharing, tweeting, posting, going viral. All examples of bold leadership that we've seen time and time again in the time of the coronavirus. But here it all started with Captain Crozier from a letter just like from the one from the Birmingham jail. The Surgeon General Jerome Adams said this week, this is going to be the hardest and saddest week of most Americans lives. Quite frankly, that people dying from the coronavirus is going to be our Pearl harbor moment. If you are familiar with the events that led to the surprise attack on Pearl harbor just before 8am on Sunday morning, December 17, 1941. As in most tragic historical events, there were communication breakdowns that played a big role. For instance, a message warning of imminent war with Japan was sent from Navy officials in Washington to Honolulu hours before the attack. But the message was not marked urgent. The message went into regular mail and wasn't delivered until the attack was nearly over. Compare a message of imminent danger sent in the US to that of a text with a video sent to a mother of an 18 year old sailor suffering from the effects of the coronavirus on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Any mother would break any chain of command to protect their child. Bad news spreads like a virus filled with fear even faster. Captain Crozier likely knew this. So when faced with a choice between what is expected of you and what is the right thing to do, seek an important stakeholder. Your internal stakeholder. That's who you should be leading. In PR speak, this means looking out for the people who are counting on you to lead in the time of crisis, quell panic, boost morale, lead by values, and most important, show care and concern for the health and safety of your employees or your crew. Crozier's crew appears to recognize their commanding officer as defending their interests, but at a great personal cost. Crozier lost his job. He eventually contracted the virus, but he found himself in the category of leaders who chose compassion over submission. The lesson from the USS Roosevelt Some choices as a leader can make can be the wrong choice. But that choice can never be considered a mistake. If humanity was chosen above personal gain. A human centric decision filled with compassion will always land on the right side of anyone's values. You may lose your job, you may lose your command, but you will never lose the respect of the people who value your leadership or leadership in general Captain Crozier led from the heart. And how do we all know? Social media, folks. Ra.