Aligning Leadership Across Vessels and with TMSA

Two ships. Same systems. Different performance

BW LNG discovered that performance doesn’t come from procedures or systems alone, but from how leaders bring them to life. By aligning leadership across vessels and shore, they reduced performance gaps and strengthened both culture and compliance.

BW LNG had strong systems, advanced vessels, and robust procedures. Yet a 2019 safety culture survey revealed a striking gap: two sister ships, delivered three months apart, performed very differently. One was in the top two, while the other was near the bottom.

Both ships operated under the same procedures, systems, and office support, so what could explain the difference? BW looked deeper and found that leadership styles varied significantly, shaping how the crew applied the tools available to them.

With that insight, the main outcome that BW wanted to see was a uniform leadership style.

Together with BW, we developed the Visible Leadership Course to create a shared leadership approach across the fleet and between ship and shore.

We combined BW’s values and competency framework with Green-Jakobsen’s human performance approach. To ensure alignment across the organisation, we co-developed the course with several BW departments – Crewing, HSEQ, Technical, and HR.

Participants attend a series of leadership modules, starting with defining their leadership profile to guide their personal development plan. The course provides practical tools for everyday work, a mentoring tool, and a quick guide. To reinforce all these, leadership development is followed up in BW’s performance appraisal system.

We delivered the first course in 2019, and it has been running for seven years now. Since launch, 800+ senior officers and 40+ office staff have completed the course. It remains highly rated by participants, reflecting both its relevance and sustained quality over time.

“Everyone likes and values the course, from the senior-most captain to the newest recruit. Getting a senior officer to attend a four-day course during his vacation is a challenge (everybody values their vacation). But after taking the course, our seafarers are thankful that they got the opportunity to attend and look at it as a time well spent in developing themselves.

This is one of the most high-scoring courses that we have in our fleet, and our seafarers always root for it. I think it’s a testament to Green-Jakobsen’s professional standard, maintaining this level of delivery across this long period.” – Bradley Pereira, Head of Crewing & General Manager, BW LNG

BW officers attend the Visible Leadership online session conducted by our facilitators

The performance gap between vessels has narrowed significantly – an indicator of a more consistent leadership across the fleet. “We see this as a marker of change,” Pereira said.

In addition, BW achieved positive recognition during an oil major audit, clearly demonstrating compliance with TMSA Element 14.

“When we respond to oil majors about how we are offering leadership courses in compliance with TMSA and Element 14, the BW Visible Leadership Course plays a very important role in answering the question: ‘How does BW comply?’

One of our oil majors did a limited TMSA audit focusing on human factors and Element 14 and was very happy to see what we are doing regarding leadership courses. 

The collaboration with Green-Jakobsen brings us to the forefront in implementing leadership courses for our seafarers. I believe this BW Visible Leadership Course brings a lot of value to BW LNG to show compliance with TMSA Element 14.” – Pereira