Leadership Redundancy in Subsea Operations: Documentation of a Study Utilizing Stimulus Case Interviews

Abstract

Complex and tightly coupled operations, despite having clear command lines and rigorous procedures, may be vulnerable to unexpected events that threaten their operations. To succeed, they need the capacity to respond flexibly and swiftly. In subsea operations, it has been proposed that when disruptive events occur while the formal leader is focused on task coordination, others with sufficient time, competence and standing step in and exercise informal leadership. This leadership redundancy has been described as a managerial resource that provides critical organizational slack. The present paper describes a methodology to test the leadership redundancy hypothesis, and summarizes preliminary findings.