Leadership in Action: Issues and Observations—The Full Nelson—Leadership Lessons from a British Naval Hero

HONING TEAMWORK

Naval life during this era is often described as one long hardship. Apart from the extended periods away from land and family, the close quarters, and the heavy manual labor, there were the ever-present hazards of disease and accident (which together accounted for 85 percent of the Royal Navy's fatalities), not to mention shipwreck and enemy action. Nelson and other British officers sailed their ships in every conceivable circumstance, from the hurricanes and shoals of the West Indies to the storms and sandbanks of the North Sea. British warships were more than twice as likely to be lost through wrecking or foundering as they were through enemy action. But it was this intensive seafaring practice that developed and honed the teamwork ...